May 7, 2025 • 49 mins
Consulting Engineers (CEs) at networking vendors blend deep technical expertise with customer-facing skills to bridge the gap between account managers and specialized solution design. They operate as specialists who support Sales Engineers when customer requirements demand deeper technical knowledge.
• CEs often join from traditional network engineering backgrounds or increasingly through vendor graduate programs
• The role provides higher impact by influencing entire industries rather than just one company
• CE positions typically offer better compensation than operational networking roles
• Computer science education rarely covers networking fundamentals, creating an industry knowledge gap
• The autonomy of the CE role allows for continuous learning and specialization while maintaining customer contact
• Working at a vendor provides exposure to bleeding-edge technology and broader industry perspectives
• Soft skills are equally important as technical skills for success in consulting engineering
If you're interested in transitioning to a Consulting Engineer role, develop your soft skills and build relationships in the networking community, as these connections are invaluable. Reach Colin Doyle and Jared Cordova on LinkedIn to learn more about consulting engineering opportunities.
Find everything AONE right here: https://linktr.ee/artofneteng
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the Art of Network Engineering, where
technology meets the human sideof IT.
Whether you're scaling networks, solving problems or shaping
your career, we've got theinsights, stories and tips to
keep you ahead in theever-evolving world of
networking.
Welcome to the Art of NetworkEngineering podcast.
My name is Andy Laptev andtoday we are talking about a
(00:22):
vendor role.
So there are a ton of differentcool roles that network
engineers and network operatorscan get at networking vendors.
We've had technical marketingengineers on the show, we've had
people from tech and just allkinds of cool, good paying jobs
at vendors that we've spokenabout.
And today we are talking aboutCEs or consulting engineers.
(00:47):
What is that?
Is it like a sales engineer?
Is it similar?
Is it different?
So here we go, we're going tojump into the role and the
purpose of covering these rolesreally is kind of what happened
to me in my career as a networkengineer, working all the time
in maintenance windows and oncall and all that stuff.
And then I got introduced to arole at my former employer,
(01:09):
juniper Networks, and I'm like,oh wow, this is great.
I can not only impact.
You know my old role.
My impact was at a company, oneof the things I love about
working at a vendor is you canimpact, you know, more than just
one company.
You can actually impact anindustry if it goes well.
So I really like that level ofimpact and the amount of people
that we can help and theproblems that we can solve on
(01:32):
almost a global basis, asopposed to just one business.
So, anyway, and it pays alittle bit better, which doesn't
hurt.
So on the show today we havereturning turning, uh, mr colin
doyle hi, colin, howdy, howdy,sir.
(01:52):
And a new face, a new voice,one of my favorite people that I
have met recently in this uhnew role at the place I'm at,
and I just love this guy, jaredcordova how you doing buddy, hey
, mr laptop.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Or and how you doing.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Mr Laptop, that's my dad.
So this is an open, easy peasyconversation.
I mean, really, it's me askingquestions and you guys answering
them.
So this should be prettyinformative for the audience and
easy for you guys, because Ihave asked Colin three or four
times what a consulting engineeris.
I love Colin's.
(02:25):
So first of all, jared you whata consulting engineer is?
I love Colin's.
So first of all, jared, you'rea consulting engineer, right?
Ce?
Yes, sir, and Colin, what isyour title?
Speaker 3 (02:33):
I'm a principal consulting engineer, which means
that I'm like Jared inprinciple.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Oh, I was hoping you're going to tell the other
joke that you can suspendstudents.
Oh right, Exactly.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
I like them both, so the takeaway here is that I'd
never give Andy a straightanswer to any question he ever
asked.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
This is true.
I've known Colin for years and,yeah, he always keeps me
guessing, which is good.
Oh, we got a kitty, hi kitty.
So, guys, let's start out with.
What is this role?
What is a consulting engineer?
What do you guys do when yougot the job description and you
interviewed, like, what is thisthing?
They call consulting engineerand a networking vendor?
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Jared, you go first Cause.
My response is going to becolored by my experience, so
it'll likely be more meandering.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Okay, well, mine's also going to be kind of kind of
using my experience as well.
So I think the I think toexplain a consulting engineer,
you have to explain how nokiaworks when it comes to sales.
Uh, so for us we have anaccount manager who interacts
directly with the customer fromthe beginning of the sale all
the way to the end.
Um, so pre and post sale, theentire.
(03:44):
You know dealing with therelationship, the the beginning
of the sale all the way to theend.
So pre and post sale, theentire.
You know dealing with therelationship the entire time,
right.
And then you have, you know, astep down from that with the
sales engineer.
So the sales engineer, becauseNokia is a pretty big company,
has to know both.
You know IP, so layer two,layer three, technologies, as
well as optical equipment.
You know in terms of like linesystems, right, optical line
(04:07):
systems.
And then you also go on andlook at fixed networks as well
with fiber.
You know ONT, olts there.
So there's a lot oftechnologies that Nokia sells
and for a sales engineer they'recovering a lot, right.
So a lot of times they know alot about.
You know those three areas, butnot super in-depth.
So that's where we come intoplay as a consulting engineer is
(04:28):
that we're able to help them.
When it comes to IP, thecustomer says, ok, I need 50
routers or 50 switches.
What does that look like in mynetwork?
Help them, create a concept, orable to show them, maybe give
(04:50):
them some guidance in terms ofwhat technologies they should
use or what would help them intheir certain case.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
I mean Colin.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
I know that you're much more experienced than me,
so I'm talking very generallyhere.
But for you, I mean, is thatkind of similar?
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Before Colin takes over, I just want to mirror that
back to make sure I understand.
So an SE has a higher level.
They know the breadth and theyou know the expanse of all the
products.
But then once a customer mightland on a particular area, like
you said, maybe an IP network orsomething like that then we
need a specialist like you whocan kind of go a little deeper
in those particular products andtechnologies.
(05:20):
Does that sound fair?
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, it's pretty fair.
I mean, a lot of our SEs arereally good at what they do.
It's generally when we get tothe point where you know it's
either platform specificdifferences right, or getting to
the point where they're tryingto understand what would be the
best implementation or the bestroute to go.
That's where we come in and wegive our opinion on the
situation right.
So mostly they deal with, youknow, the first couple
(05:43):
conversations with the customergetting to a point where they
don't.
They don't know any further,like you know.
Ok, so you know segment routingversus, versus.
You know RCPTE, why, why, howdo I talk to the customer about
this?
Right, how do I, you know, if Iwant them to go segment routing
route because it makes iteasier for them, how do I convey
(06:04):
that in the proper way?
And some sales engineers mightnot know that right.
Some sales engineers are also.
They might be more experiencedin the optical side, they might
be more experienced in the fiberside.
So it just depends kind of ontheir experience as well when we
come in.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
It starts with an understanding of how
organizations like ours go tomarket, and they're all
generally going to have accountteams that map to customer
opportunities or patches orregions, however they get sliced
up, and in that role you'llhave somebody who is on the
sales side of the business andsomebody who's on the
engineering side of the businessyour account manager and your
SE as those individualcontributors essentially the tip
(06:40):
of the spear, the frontlineinterface between the
organization and the customer.
Essentially for any business,this is the business that the
customer will see.
In that role you have to be ageneralist of sorts.
There's a certain minimumamount of information, knowledge
, understanding, sales acumenthat you need to possess across
(07:02):
the entire portfolio.
You might find that youspecialize in certain areas of
that portfolio because they'reinteresting to you, or you have
some form of practicalexperience, or you've pursued
enablement for those types ofproducts because you've seen
value either to yourself orintrinsically in the types of
customers that you support.
I know more about product X andI look at the composition of
the customers I'm responsiblefor.
They're predominantly going tobe interested in product X.
(07:25):
So the more I learn, the betterI can sell as you move away
from the field, that front lineand towards the we'll say
executive suite, somethinghappens and it's different
depending on which side of thatsales versus engineering you're
on.
If you're on the sales side andyou're starting to move up into
(07:46):
the business, towards theC-suite, you're going to be
making more macro decisions,decisions that abstract specific
individual customers and startlooking at revenue and
opportunities at regional andthen area levels.
And if you're an engineer,you're going to get more
specialized by design.
And if you're an engineer,you're going to get more
(08:06):
specialized by design and you'reeither going to remain an
individual contributor and sortof reach the apex, the zenith of
that role, or you're going tobecome a people manager.
And I would look at theconsulting engineer and the
architect those two types oftitles as being maybe even more
the consulting engineer and lessthe architect, because they
generally are more specializedas one of the last individual
(08:28):
contributor roles where you'restill a generalist.
And even within that roleyou're still going to have
people like myself who have alot of data center experience.
There are certainly people onmy team who are more routing
oriented, routing oriented, butwe are oftentimes there to
(08:52):
provide that support once thefield has reached the we'll say
first 60 to 90 minutes worth ofnarrative, sales and baseline
engineering work we've askedthem to do and provide, and
sometimes we'll get pulled inearly because they'll see the
writing on the wall and theywant that expertise early on.
You only make a first impressiononce, obviously, and you want
it to be the right impression soyou might have a specialist
(09:12):
there.
It also depends on the types ofcustomers that you're servicing,
the needs that they have, andeven the title itself can vary.
Having recently been at Juniperand now at Nokia, the role of
consulting engineer could havetwo meanings.
It was a title that wasafforded to a particular pay
grade, which it was just anabstraction.
(09:33):
If you were called a consultingengineer, it meant that you
were this specific grade, and ifyou were called a consulting
engineer in your business card,it could mean any number of
other things, and the wayconsulting engineer was defined
there is different than the wayit's defined here.
So we can make broad statementsabout what it means, but it is
(09:56):
going to be up to the individualthat's pursuing these
opportunities the hiring managerand whatever management
structures wrapped around therole that that pursuing these
opportunities, the hiringmanager, whatever management
structures wrapped around therole that that person might fit
into, to define what theresponsibilities of that person
are going to be.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
I like what you said about the first 60 to 90 minutes
of narrative might be more ofan.
Scam side of the house, wherethen the CE comes in.
That kind of aligns with whatJared said about high-level
product value props and thengetting into the deeper, I guess
, technical dives.
So this is a pre-sales role,correct?
This is?
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Post-sales for this opportunity is pre-sales for the
next one, right?
So it is intended to be thatway, I think.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yeah, I would agree with that, it's.
I would say that it's uh, Iwould say that it's 70, I would
say that it's 60 to 75% uh,pre-sales, and then you know,
obviously after the sale.
Then we help support, um, causewe have a little bit, we have a
little bit deeper uh, you knowexpertise.
So RSE will typically manage onthe on the post-sale side as
(11:04):
well, but we'll help them afterthe sale as well, right, if they
need that, because we also areon the sales side.
So we need to help maintain therelationship with the customer,
make sure that everything worksproperly, not just
theoretically, but in practiceas well.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Well, and let's be honest too.
Once a customer gets yourcontact information, they're
going to reach out to you.
So part of that other 30% isand we're going to take that
call.
That's always, you know it's ifyou're kind of moving from this
place.
If we want everybody's life tobe better, make things easier,
(11:40):
reduce friction, then yeah, wetake the call, and if we need to
push them into a differentworkflow, we do.
But that's, you know it was.
We take the call, and if weneed to push them into a
different workflow, we do.
But that was a good explanation, jared.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
So I think what's interesting to me is that you
two have different backgroundscoming into this role.
So what's the running joke innetworking?
It depends, right.
It's so hard to give one answerto anything really.
But what skills andqualifications might be required
to become a CE in anorganization?
(12:12):
Technical chops, soft skills,things like that.
So maybe this is a good timejust to quickly touch on your
different backgrounds.
So, like Jared, you come inkind of a different way.
I've come into, I've come in asa traditional network engineer
who managed data centers, blah,blah, blah, worked my way
through those ranks to Colin'spoint I was probably going the
architect route, you know andthen wound up at a vendor.
(12:36):
So how did you come to be a CE?
Were you a network engineer bytrade?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, no See, that's a typical right, andy.
So the way that you weretalking about it, that's how a
lot of people evolve into thevendor side.
My case is really, I would say,more unique.
I didn't have any networkingexperience at all.
The only thing close to it wasthat my dad was.
(13:01):
You know, my dad is innetworking.
But beside that, I mean, youknow, I didn't really, when
people say the term networking,I thought it just meant social
networking, like you know.
I thought it just meant, likeyou and I talking to each other,
getting to meet each other.
Like I didn't understand reallywhat the internet was beside
when I needed wifi access toplay call of duty.
So I, you know, like my, mylevel of my my, so you know,
(13:31):
like my, my level of my level ofunderstanding and experience
when it came to knowing, youknow, networking and what it is
was very minimal.
So for me, I was able to joinright out of college.
So right as soon as I graduated, I was able to join a group
called Nifty, which is likestands for Network
Infrastructure, futureTechnological Innovators, super
long term.
But it was a great program andso there were 11 of us that
joined.
There was me and another andanother, another person who
(13:51):
joined and like this specificrole as an IP consulting
engineer, cause, like I saidearlier, nokia is really big, so
there was a lot of roles thatwere filled right.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
So hold on quick pause.
So your major was in what?
Computer science?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
I'm guessing yeah, it was computer science major in
college okay, is the niftyprogram part of where you work?
Speaker 1 (14:07):
is it an?
Is that a nokia branded thing?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
yeah, yeah so it was specifically for our network
infrastructure, uh business, uhbusiness group.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
So they covered roles for ip, for optical and for uh
and for fixed networks so theybring in college grads to kind
of teach them the ropes, likehey, this is a zero to hero yeah
, exactly yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
The idea is that you know it.
It takes a lot longer and andwhat we're seeing now is that,
in comparison to you know, maybewhen you know, maybe when you
all were in college, is thatthere is no information systems
degree anymore, really, likethat's not a popular thing.
Um, now, what the popular thingis is what I did, which was
computer science, programming,ai, ml.
(14:51):
I took those classes in collegeand mostly what we've seen is
that, at least what I've seen isthat everything's moved up the
stack, from focusing on layertwo, layer three, to now or
layer four, to now focusing onlayer seven in college.
So I understood how to create amodel, an ai model, but I
didn't understand the networkingthat went behind it to actually
make it happen.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
So for me it was a complete change of, you know, a
thought process which seemscommon, the more people I've
spoken to on the show over thepast year or two.
Like everybody wants to go intoai and cyber I mean even at the
nugs that I participate in,where it seems like networking
is just less and less attractiveor sexy, right Like nobody or
called out by name, the roadsright.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
I mean, it's not so much networking's gone away.
It obviously hasn't.
We're having this conversationconversation.
The role of it, the role itplays in a network, is now being
abstracted by the tooling thatsits over the top of it, which
is good, because networks don'texist for their own sake.
(15:54):
Networks exist to interconnectthe things that connect to the
network, and I believe theevolution is starting as just
the pull along effect oftechnology and the skill base,
catching up with the role of thenetwork and how we can abstract
its management towards theoperations versus, just like
these individual boxes we haveto log into manually.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Jared, I'm guessing that your dad, who works where
you work, turned you on to theprogram, like, hey, there's this
thing for grads.
You should check it out.
Like, how did you find outabout this program, or it?
Speaker 2 (16:25):
yeah, yeah, I mean, I had, you know, I I was applying
for a while.
I graduated in uh in 2023, so I, I was, I was applying for a
while, kind of.
John mark was down a bit and hepointed me and said, hey, you
know, I saw this, uh, I saw thiskind of really interesting
posting and sent it my way.
Um, I I applied to it notreally thinking anything of it.
To be honest, when I saw Nokia,I did what everybody else
(16:47):
thought, what everybody elsethinks, and I was like, oh, the
phone company got to learn aboutphones now.
So, yeah, it was a goodopportunity.
So far, I mean, I will say Ineed to speak on it a little bit
before Colin gives his side.
I had pretty much when I came on, there were no expectations for
me to understand and be in theIP consulting engineering role
(17:10):
right away.
They understood that I needed tolearn and get up to speed,
especially not having anyexperience with networking.
So I had a good, you know aboutyear buffer before I got, you
know, placed in, placed in theteam with Colin and Igor who
who's you know, one of our othercolleagues to learn, you know,
to learn how my own experiences,and that meant, like you know
(17:31):
protocols, like learning BGP,learning ISIS, you know all the
basic, fundamental things thatyou would get exposed to like in
, you know, in operations, inthe NOC right, and so learning,
learning it from a differentperspective, I think, is what Um
, and so learning, learning itfrom a different perspective, I
think is what, uh, you know isis.
Getting that year buffer wasnice.
Um so, colin, I mean you had adifferent experience.
(17:53):
I mean you've done this kind oflike a little bit more hands-on
, a bit more, a bit more Andy'sway, Um so I like that Andy's
way sounds like a pretty cooldark action flick.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Sounds like a pretty cool dark action flick.
Yeah, I mean, I've been in thisbusiness forever, over 20 years
.
I started as phone support forGateway Computers, which Jared,
you won't remember because thatcompany was dead before you were
old enough to care about a Idon't know, I mean somebody.
(18:25):
As a young child you might haveseen a box that had a design
that looked like a Holstein cowon the outside.
That would have been a Gatewaycomputer box.
That might have beeninteresting to you at that age.
Yeah, I'm in the seat that I'min not because I went through a
technology ROTC program likeJared, which is essentially what
those types of college programsare.
(18:47):
He got there because there wasa very specific lane.
I have my role because I had tomake a conscious pivot.
Let me back up.
You're always going to bepresented in this industry with
the choice to be a more focusedindividual contributor, like
(19:11):
your opportunities for growth ifthat's something you're
interested in, moving up thefood chain, so to speak.
And I know tons of people thatare very happy to be field
sellers, and rightly so, becausethe biggest pay cut I ever took
was not leaving the field as anSE and moving into the business
into an architect role.
So start by understanding howyou're going to define your own
(19:34):
personal success.
That's just before you make anydecisions.
It's so critical to be honestabout what you want and it could
just be money, sure For me.
I always had the same answerwhenever I go into a performance
review about what you want, andit could just be money, sure
For me.
I always had the same answerwhenever I go into a performance
review about what do I want tobe.
When I grow up to the pointwhere my bosses stopped asking
me and it was always this that Ifelt like I was successful if I
(19:56):
could measure the impact I washaving on a business on broader
terms.
So the next thing that I wantedwasn't a specific role ever, it
was always just is what'savailable to me, something that
I can look around and say youknow I'm having an impact and
it's helping more people?
When you're in a field seller,you're actually working on an
account team.
You're incredibly important tothe book of customers that you
(20:20):
have.
You're contributing to yourteam's number in that region
that you're in.
But that gets abstracted moreand more as you move up to the
macro business on a global level, right.
So me moving into anarchitecture team from the field
in my last job was really aboutme being able to help more
(20:40):
people and, to put a finer pointon the money side of that, I
went from carrying I think itwas like a $12 or $13 million
number to carrying a $1 billionnumber, because essentially I
picked up all of North Americaenterprise sales as a number.
So any accelerator tables got,they were just gone.
Like I was never.
I wasn't making my ability tohit attainment went away, but I
(21:04):
was fulfilled and it wassatisfying.
So I had to start by decidingwhat you want to do and then, do
you want to be an individualcontributor or do you want to be
a people manager?
Because it's two completelydifferent skill sets that you
need to develop.
I've been both.
I like being an individualcontributor.
I also find that these types ofroles are more immediately
(21:26):
impactful.
I've got more agency to dothings that I want to do, versus
if I'm managing people, which Ienjoy greatly.
It just I don't know.
It wasn't the seat that wasavailable at the time when I was
making my decisions.
You said, andy I have a notehere.
It says you.
You said zero to hero talkingabout Jared's journey and I
(21:50):
wanted to correct you becausewe're in tech.
It's actually just zero to one.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
You know it's but if we can turn that, zero into a
one.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
We're doing great.
So, um, I w, I want to.
I want to laugh at the factthat Jared's like you know,
you're learning basic stuff likeBGP and ISIS.
I'm like you know you'relearning basic stuff like BGP
and ISIS.
I'm like, really Like I waslearning about the OSI model
Like basic.
To me was a differentconversation, but I'm really
fascinated in just how you hadyou came to this, starting with
computer science and programmingversus me, which was like
(22:20):
learning CLIs and also having tolearn all the stuff that's now
dead, like EIGRP and frame relayand stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Oh, my God, they're my two darlings.
I love, I love those twotechnologies, jared.
Correct me if I'm wrong, butsomething I'm hearing in
multiple places over the pastyear or two is there's not that
much networking covered incomputer science curriculum?
Is that accurate?
Year or two is there's not thatmuch networking covered in
computer science curriculum?
Is that accurate?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
yeah, no, there's really not.
At least, uh, at least at myuniversity there wasn't um.
You know like in in ourcurriculum it was python first.
Those were our first twoclasses.
You get pretty proficient withit.
Then you do a little bit ofjava kind of web development.
So you learn about, you know umyou learn about cicd.
Uh, you know.
Uh, with you know, you learnabout CICD.
You know, with web developertools, so I use, like Eclipse,
(23:09):
you know, obviously I use VSCode, that's, that's every, it's
every programmer's favorite.
You know IDE and you know, Iwould say like, genuinely, I
really didn't learn anythingabout networking until I went to
the front, like until I startedworking on a front end project
with one of my professors mysenior year, and at that point
(23:30):
the only thing that I had seenwas how to kind of deal with the
server.
Uh, so it wasn't even like realnetworking, it wasn't really
understanding, it was just, uh,it was just, how do I
communicate with this, with thisserver?
And that's still not even youknow on on the networking layer,
right?
So I wasn't doing any protocolwork.
(23:51):
I forgot to mention this, andy,but I think the most important
thing for me and why I ended upwanting to get into this role
and wanting to be in the Niftygroup, was because when I looked
at the role and I looked at theCE requirements, I always had
wanted to do something where Icould be technical but I could
also use my people skills and Iwanted to be able to talk to
people every day, but I didn'twant to sit in an office and I
(24:11):
didn't want to be an accountmanager and have to talk to
people every day, and I wantedthere to be days where I could
just, you know, work and be anerd.
You know, I feel like I feellike this role really gives you
the best of both worlds.
I feel like there's days whereyou know and Colin can
definitely talk on this as welland I feel like, andy, even you
can too.
I know that you're doing yourown labbing and you've been
having your own fun.
Recently We've been talking,you know, going back and forth
(24:31):
about learning how to do it.
I didn't even know how to SSHbefore I came to Nokia, and I
knew how to do Python, knew howto do Java, I even learned
Haskell, which is an oldfunctional programming language.
So it yeah, the curriculum'sout of whack a little bit, I
would say.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
So I've heard that in a lot of different places, like
you know.
Oh, why don't we have enoughpeople coming into networking
while they're not teaching it,it seems like?
And then what you do, what youare exposed to, is like yeah,
well, there's this network thing.
Nobody cares about becauseeverything's abstracted, but ooh
, let's secure the network withcyber or AI or you know, or
whatever it is.
And just a quick question whenyou graduated with a computer
science major, what type of jobswere you applying for?
(25:09):
And they said, like the marketwasn't great, but it wasn't
networking.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Oh yeah, I mean, it was anything.
It was anything.
Software developer.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Software dev yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Back in front end.
Honestly, I was even doing UIand UX jobs too.
I was applying for thosebecause I had a little bit of
experience with that, but I meanit was across the board, Job
market was just not great.
But thankfully I ended upgetting this program.
They took a chance on me and Iwill say that the most enticing
thing that they saw on my resumewas that I had experience with
AI and ML, which is kind of likeright In terms of experience.
(25:41):
I took a couple of classes, Ibuilt my own models, I got
hands-on work with it from theapplication side and I actually
did my presentation when I was.
I did a presentation to myinterviewers at the time and it
ended up being a lot of mymanagers now and that was one of
(26:01):
the biggest things that theysaw that I understood the
technology.
But then they had asked methrough it like, okay, so how
would this apply to the network,right?
So what do these models do tothe network?
And I couldn't answer at thetime.
I had no idea.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
There's two things, and then I'll hand it over to
Colin, who looks like he hassomething to say.
I like what you said aboutyou're a tech nerd who also
likes people, and there are ahandful of roles.
Again, it pays way less andit's very physical, but I love
my time as a cable guy becauseit is super duper technical.
You have to know a ton of verydeep technical things, but I
(26:32):
have eight jobs a day.
I'm going to eight differentplaces and I'm meeting new
people and there's differentchallenges and I really like
that person.
And when I got on the datacenter side in production, I'm
like, oh, thank God, I don'thave to deal with people yelling
at me anymore and I relish that.
Good, now it's just me and thekeyboard.
And what's interesting is,after years of doing that five,
six years I started to miss thepeople side.
(26:54):
I miss the interactions withpeople and I really like a
couple roles that I've had atvendors.
It's very technical, but it'salso very communicative what
some might call soft skills.
The other thing I wanted to askyou and then I'll shut up is
you graduated what?
A couple years ago, I guess.
When did you graduate college?
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Yeah, 2023.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
All right, and you've been working a little while.
Looking backward, you have alittle bit of perspective now.
Do you think and I'm notadvocating for it, it's just
something I've been talkingabout in different places Do you
think we are doing a disserviceto the kids in computer science
by not teaching networking?
Or has our tooling gotten goodenough that we don't really have
(27:37):
to teach the networking basics,because we're just going to
overlay everything and press themagic button and everything
will be fine?
I'm being a little facetious,right, but yeah, that's, that's
the extreme end of the right,like, well, we don't have to if
we're not teaching computerscience majors networking, who
are going to go out and buildsoftware and systems and e
commerce platforms and AI, likeI just don't know.
(27:59):
As a networking person, my biasis like how dare they?
You have to teach networking.
Do you think, think, would youprefer to learn more networking?
Or I mean, it's working out foryou, so it's fine.
But are we screwing up ourindustry by not teaching it in
computer science?
Speaker 2 (28:12):
I guess is the question, in my opinion.
Yeah, I think that even now,like the more that I've looked
at it, even though we had, youknow, that program where we had
11 new grads come in I mean Ilook around at the industry and
I see people who are in myequivalent role, right, all my
peers.
You know, it's definitely anaging industry and it's a skill
(28:37):
set that is needed for us tosustain our society, honestly,
and I don't think that it'ssociety in terms of, like the
internet, and I don't think thatwe're at the point where we can
just say automation is going totake over everything, because
people don't trust automation,right, they don't trust the
tools that we create from asoftware perspective, and I
don't blame them, because noneof them have really worked to
(28:59):
the point that everyone can say,okay, this is the tool that we
can go with, right, this works.
So I think, genuinely, I alsowould have loved to understand,
like I would have loved to takenetworking like one course of it
in college, just so I canunderstand, okay, so I
understand the application side.
I kind of understand that, likeyou know, my application gets
from here to there, but how doesthat actually happen?
(29:21):
Right, how does you know what isa packet?
What is a frame?
What are you know fiber?
What is a frame?
What are you know fiber?
What is that?
Like light bouncing in a glasstube?
What does that even mean?
Right?
So I feel like actuallyunderstanding that and
understanding how yourinformation gets from point A to
point B would be just.
It would be beneficial toeverybody who takes a computer
science class, because then theycan understand the underlay of
(29:44):
what they're doing.
So I'll leave it with that, butI think that we should take
note.
I think networking classesshould be required for people to
take in the future.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Fair Kyle.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
First a minor correction.
Jared said fiber in a glasstube.
The fiber optics we have arestill solid glass on the inside.
The light bounces around insidethe actual solid glass.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Still learning.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
I think the cladding on the glass.
I mean, if we really want to bepedantic about it, there's
cladding on the outside thatmakes it refract back in.
But I digress.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
We can have a whole nother discussion on, like
Raleigh scattering and hydroxyllimits and all that.
Oh, it's fascinating to see howwe optimize the glass that we
put in fiber optics and theconsiderations the Raleigh
scattering in particular.
That's also the reason why thesky is blue during the day.
The sky is blue during the day.
So one of the challenges, Ithink, with having a network
(30:49):
anything in a collegeenvironment, is that networking
isn't really a degree.
Networking is a vocationaltrade.
If you look at the first coursethat any certification program
for networking teaches acrossany vendor, they're all going to
be the same Basic OSI modelstuff.
You're going to learn whatevervariation of that stack Mine was
(31:14):
please do not touch Steve's petalligator to remember the
different first letters for thedifferent parts of the OSI model
.
That class is taught in a week.
That class is taught in a weekand because of that a networking
program at a college is goingto, you know, maybe a credit.
I think that they and I'm notsaying that the value isn't
(31:35):
there, it's just the value isn'tthere in a way that's
sufficient to maybe I mean.
I've seen these courses at thelocal community colleges and
it's like once a week and allthat.
I think it's important.
I think it's important.
I think I can understand atleast why we don't see people
coming out of college withnetworking.
Honestly Jared, the way thatyou came to this role is far
(31:57):
more representative of at leastthe feeling we all had about
where the industry was going,potentially a bit more
abstracted from the networkingthan I might have thought.
But if networking is still ayeoman's trade, then you can
learn the generalized curriculumthat a computer science degree
(32:19):
delivers, which is really just abig thick how things work book
about just the relationship,just the relationship between
you.
Know great, it's all ones andzeros.
So like, if I feed thisinformation into this system,
how is it going to be processingit?
And that information, that kindof like I can learn how the
motor works, but I still need togo be trained to be a
specialist on specific engines,right, like it takes like four
(32:44):
times longer to become a Ferraricertified mechanic than it does
to become a CCMP.
So, as an example, in terms oflike how many hours of training
that you have to receive beforeyou can receive the
certification.
So I think that what you'redoing, jared, and where you are
right now is where we've allexpected the industry to go, and
(33:05):
I think also the progressionmakes sense that you get all
that baseline information andthe network as a physical
representation of where we aretoday in this industry is sort
of secondary to the primaryeducation that you need, the
education that I'm sure Andy andI I can at least speak for
myself wish we had received.
(33:26):
Education that I'm sure Andyand I I can at least speak for
myself wish we had received.
I mean, I'm happy to have thedegree that I have, but now I
need to go out and teach myselfthe stuff that you were taught
by others with where theindustry is going, then somebody
(33:46):
who might have had, like if Iwere to take myself from 10
years ago a traditionalnetworking experience and plot
myself in here, I would haveeven less of an idea of what the
hell I was doing.
And that's saying something,considering.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
I wake up every morning like how did I get here,
what's going on, and I think Iwanted to add onto that, because
I think one of the you know wetalked about how it kind of
needs to be a requirement atleast that's what I said and
also Colin was talking about how, you know we're saying a little
bit.
You know how there should be alittle bit more.
(34:18):
You know networking in generaland that you guys kind of have
assumed this.
You know, people who are in theindustry now have assumed that
at least the talent coming outdoesn't really have as much
experience, and that's, for themost part, really true.
I think the nice thing you knowabout being in a consulting
engineering role is that you doget to be, you know, you do get
to go out there, you do get tosee what's going on in the
(34:39):
industry, and I think that youknow I went to AutoCon and Colin
we were at AutoCon together.
You know, andy, you were thereat autocon too.
I think we might have met eachother there for the first time.
I don't remember but, um, butyeah.
So when we were there we met,you know, we met a few college
kids and and they were, uh, youknow the event was in denver and
we had met some people from,you know the university of
colorado, boulder, and you knowthey were showing us that in a
(35:01):
uh, it was a, it was a master'sdegree that they were working on
and it's, honestly, I thinkit's well known across the US
and in the networking industrythat you know, professor Levi, I
think it's Perigo from you know, uh, you know from from an
abstract perspective as well, bycreating their own tools and
stuff.
And I did want to shout themout a little bit because I think
(35:31):
that that's something that'ssuper cool and I wish I would
have even known about thatbefore I graduated because,
honestly, I probably would havejust gone and done a master's
degree there and then gone anddone networking after.
So, uh, yeah, I think I thinkhaving at least a master's
degree like that you know, at afew more colleges would be nice,
but I think the visibility ofopportunities like that is
(35:55):
really low, especially innetworking, and Colin mentioned
that earlier.
Networking has you don't bringup the name.
Everyone thinks of it as socialnetworking.
It's not.
Computer networking is a veryit's an unseen term.
People don't use it as often Ithink.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Well, and if you want to grow like going the master's
route, getting into technology.
This is why it's so importantto try to understand how you're
going to find yourself,fulfillment within the IT space
if this is the career path thatyou decide to take.
When I think about what I wantto do, there's a split.
(36:31):
It's like the technology isgreat, I like the people stuff,
I like the management stuff.
If I were to go back to schooland get a master's degree right
now, it would be in business andfinance.
It would be a continuation ofthe degree I already have.
Ultimately, if you move fartherup in the business and you get
closer to the C-suite,everything that you talk about
(36:54):
is going to have to be definedwithin the framework of business
outcomes.
You have to measure the growthof things, the revenue, the
attainment.
You have to measure the growthof things, the revenue, the
attainment.
I'm sure we're going to get toa point later in this discussion
where we're talking about folksputting in resumes and applying
for these types of positions.
(37:15):
I'm going to touch on thatagain.
Then I would be focusing onsoft skills, but that's just
because I'm looking at a veryspecific place in the future you
can reach the apex of theindividual contributor role as
well.
There's a point where you'renot going to be able to be a
(37:35):
generalist anymore and by thetime you get into a consulting
engineer role, you've alreadygot your feet in that pool.
The next step, if you move outof this team and onto another
team, is, generally speaking,going to be a product line
manager, a technical marketingengineer, somebody who's going
to be aligned with a specifictechnology, and then, beyond
that, if you decide to build themuscle, you might get into some
(37:57):
of the more engineering stuff.
But the, frankly, the role of aconsulting engineer how it's
been defined here where we workand in my previous role, is just
an amazing place to be becauseyou do get to touch a lot of the
parts of the business.
(38:18):
We've talked about a lot of thecustomer-facing stuff and the
field support.
We're also this connectivetissue between the strategic
decisions that are being madethat inform products and
technologies and features thatgo into software and the inputs
that are coming in from thefield, and occupying that space,
(38:40):
that interlock space, is a veryincredibly important part of
what we do.
It's also very interesting.
It gives you a lot of exposureto kind of the heartbeat of
what's going on in the differentparts of the business.
So this ending up in this rolesomewhere along your journey, I
think, is a good thing, becauseit gives you a lot of line of
(39:04):
sight on all the differentthings that you could do next.
Or you can just stay here.
Our boss, jared, and I's bosswe have the same boss, which
I'll be sure to mention to himthat you wish you'd stayed in
school and not come right toNokia to him.
(39:27):
I'll let him know, um, thathe's been here for like 20 years
and recently there was anopening that came up and we all
had some sort of this collectiveanxiety where we would have
been really happy for him if hehad taken the the role.
It would have been a hugepromotion, he would have crushed
it.
But we're also like but alsostay here with us please,
because he was so awesome and hedecided to stay and I say that
intentionally.
He decided he could have goneand done that.
If he just said yeah, I'll doit, boom.
There's just no way.
(39:47):
He's been here for so long,he's so good, he's so well liked
.
We ended up with somebody who'sgood and well liked in the role.
It's no problem.
But be honest, too, withyourself about what you want to
do, because if you find yourselfin a place where you're really
happy, there might always be avoice in your head that's saying
yeah, but if you're not movingforward, if you lose this
(40:11):
inertia that you have, you'renot succeeding.
It's like you can find anddefine your success wherever you
like.
So if you find something whereyou're happy, you're comfortable
and you like the people and theculture and everything else
around you also, don't be afraidto stay there, and being a
consulting engineer is a prettycool place to stay.
(40:31):
I've had this role in one wayor another for probably four or
five years, and it's just.
You get to touch so manydifferent things.
It's so neat.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
I second what the smart guy said, Andy.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Totally.
We're just about at the endhere, so I'm going to ask you
guys, I guess, my last question,which is a two parter what is
your favorite and least favoritepart about the job, or pro and
a con, or the thing you love themost and hate the most?
Whatever, give me the twoopposite ends of like this
part's great and this partstinks.
And do you have any partingadvice for network operators
(41:12):
that are interested in this role, what it sounds like, the cool
stuff that they'd be able to do,besides doing what either one
of you guys did, which is startat Gateway Computers in the 90s
or go to computer science and doan ROTC program?
Best part of the job, worstpart of the job and parting
advice?
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Do you want to go first, Colin?
I'd be happy to go first.
Jared needs a minute.
Speaker 3 (41:37):
Collective thoughts I'll vamp for a while.
We're at the hub of this wheelthat is spinning, which means
that we get to see a lot ofdifferent things.
We get to help a lot of people.
We also get to define our work,by and large, on our own.
There's some high-levelexpectations that get placed on
(41:57):
us and this isn't unique, Ithink, to our leadership,
although we've got a pretty goodleader or our company in
general, although we got apretty good leader or our
company in general.
This position.
There is quite a bit ofautonomy, but it's it's earned
through the all the things youdid before it.
Uh, least favorite thing andthis is just a personal thing
for me, um, and it is not, yeah,not a complaint, it's a, it's a
(42:20):
me thing um, sometimes I do theautonomy is almost a little bit
too much for me.
So I will find myself settingup meetings and just there's
some anxiety I get in my head.
When I was a, I'm like am Idoing the right thing?
Is this providing value topeople?
Are the things that I want towork on aligned with the
(42:41):
priorities of the business?
And it's a lot clearer ifyou're a field seller what your
responsibilities are.
You've got a book of customers,you've got a quota that you're
carrying, you've got a portfolioof products and just go do the
thing.
So you do need to possess thetools and the skills within this
(43:02):
role to keep yourself busy andmake sure that the things that
you're busying yourself with aremeaningful within the scope of
what your responsibilities are.
And then, jerry, you can go andthen we can get to the advice.
Unless you have a longtimelines and ambiguity.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
I think we're the.
Yeah, it's, and that's just hitme at vendor.
Some people thrive in that andI thrive, but it's, and that's
just hit me at vendor.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
Some people thrive in that and I I thrive, but it's
still like I I'll get in my ownhead about it.
And so, like I have 30different notepad windows open
at the same time and you know,click up that I gotta blow the
dust.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
You know my, my actual task tracking tool that I
use once a week, you know, justlike that jared, yeah, uh, I'll
say, uh, it's not necessarilysomething I dislike, it's
something that it's somethingyou have to deal with, um, and
particularly because of my Iguess situation where I'm very
(43:59):
new to networking uh, still veryI honestly would consider, you
know, almost being in this fortwo years, still very new.
I think the most difficultthing is, like Colin was talking
about you know, how we have tounderstand both the technical
and the business side, right,and what we do is it's our
products are applied, you knowapplied business, right.
So how can they, how can theyuse our products, how can they
(44:21):
use our services in a way thatit boosts their company and
their sales and that, you know,they make more revenue, right?
I think that the hardest thingto understand is, you know,
understanding every customer'sstory.
Uh, in terms of understanding,like that they'll use some art,
what I call like archaic.
You know technologies, uh, youknow, call like archaic.
(44:43):
You know technologies.
Uh, you know SNMP, uh, you know, and, um, and you just kind of
have to understand, like, whythose are rooted in in, you know
, in, a customer and how to kindof like talk them out of that,
right, and maybe some other.
There's so many things that youhave to understand.
You know, like, even call andtalk about frame relay uh, you
know, obviously I'm never goingto see it in the future, but I
(45:03):
still have to understand what itwas, and you know, some people
grew up.
You know, some people have notgrew up, but they lived through
that.
They lived through thesetechnologies and lived through
the evolution, Right.
So you not only have tounderstand the now and also the
future when you're a CEO, butyou also have to understand the
past and how to properlycommunicate with someone, how to
(45:25):
get them from the past to maybethe present or maybe in the
future, right.
So that's the only thing that Iwould say is like kind of
difficult to deal with.
The one thing I love, though,is, like colin was saying, is
the autonomy of I'm never bored.
I there.
I I literally could findsomething new every day, and we
talked about this adhd.
Pretty sure all three of ushere have ad.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Does anybody in tech not have it?
It's a thing.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
Yeah, no, I think the nice thing is that I'm never
bored.
If I want to learn somethingand I want to become like a mini
expert in it, I can do that,and I can also rely on people
like Colin to help me and helpteach me something.
Right?
I think that I use my team alot to help pass their knowledge
, and I feel like we do thatwith each other because we're
the best resources for eachother.
(46:09):
Right, we know a lot about you,know our little areas, and
Collins taught me so much indifferent areas.
I mean, this guy is a frickingencyclopedia and, andy, you've
taught me a lot about a lot.
You've taught me a lot aboutthe experience of uh, you know
of, of an, of, of an operatorLike, we've talked about that a
little bit.
And you've also told me about.
You know how importantrelationships can be, especially
in the networking community,because networking community is
(46:31):
very unique, but that's anotherthing.
I'll say it's my, it's tied fornumber one.
I love this community man Ihave not met.
I haven't met too many badpeople.
I can't even think of themright now.
Everyone here has been sosupportive and everyone just
wants to generally learn.
They just want to be nerdstogether and it's so cool to be
part of an industry thateveryone wants to be a nerd.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
Nerds.
I want to be respectful ofeverybody's time and I think
we're at time.
So where can folks find you two?
If they are an aspiring CE andthey want to reach out and get
more information and maybe someadvice from you, where can they
find you?
Speaker 3 (47:06):
I'm shutting your wrap up down, I do have a piece
of advice Develop your softskills.
You can find me on LinkedIn.
I think it's like cdoyle-pdx orsomething, but if you look for
Colin Doyle, nokia, you'll findme.
I also have a YouTube channel,but go to LinkedIn and all the
stuff you can find.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
Another networking channel.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
It is yet another networking channel.
Yeah, another number I'mturning on the content hose
because I had to do a bunch ofinternal stuff first, so I'm not
getting too bold about pointingpeople there, because there's
really just one silly video andthen one less silly video on
EVPN.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn.
My advice is just, if you'resomebody who wants to combine
both the uh, both your softskills and the technical side
and never be bored also, I mean,you'll be stressed, but you'll
never be bored looking at beinga CE, it's going to be the best
thing that you do.
People do this job for 20, 30years for a reason, and you get
to meet people like Colin and Iand Andy.
(48:01):
So, um, yeah, I w, I woulddefinitely look into it.
Um, linkedin, I have anInstagram.
Uh, it's Dova D O V A.
If you guys want to, you guyswant to say hi.
So I'm open to anything.
My DMS are open.
So thanks for having us on here, andy, appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
Sliding the Jared's DMS, as the kids say he plays
rugby, so he can track hisvarious head.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
Yeah, Thanks so much for coming on, guys.
This was very insightful for me.
Thank you for answering all thequestions and giving us some
insight into yet another awesomevendor role that you, as a
network engineer or operator,can look into.
Hit us up, ask questions Forall things.
Art of NetEng.
You can go to our link tree,linktreecom forward slash.
Art of Network Engineering.
All the things are there, Mostnotably our Discord server
(48:46):
called it's All About theJourney Thousands of people in
there helping each other withstudying, with problems, and
just chatting and lifting eachother up day to day saying hi.
So if you don't have acommunity, it's one you can
check out.
As always, thanks for listeningand we'll catch you next time
on the Art of NetworkEngineering podcast.
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engineering podcast.
This is the Art of Network Engineering, where
technology meets the human sideof IT.
Whether you're scaling networks, solving problems or shaping
your career, we've got theinsights, stories and tips to
keep you ahead in theever-evolving world of
networking.
Welcome to the Art of NetworkEngineering podcast.
My name is Andy Laptev andtoday we are talking about a
(00:22):
vendor role.
So there are a ton of differentcool roles that network
engineers and network operatorscan get at networking vendors.
We've had technical marketingengineers on the show, we've had
people from tech and just allkinds of cool, good paying jobs
at vendors that we've spokenabout.
And today we are talking aboutCEs or consulting engineers.
(00:47):
What is that?
Is it like a sales engineer?
Is it similar?
Is it different?
So here we go, we're going tojump into the role and the
purpose of covering these rolesreally is kind of what happened
to me in my career as a networkengineer, working all the time
in maintenance windows and oncall and all that stuff.
And then I got introduced to arole at my former employer,
(01:09):
juniper Networks, and I'm like,oh wow, this is great.
I can not only impact.
You know my old role.
My impact was at a company, oneof the things I love about
working at a vendor is you canimpact, you know, more than just
one company.
You can actually impact anindustry if it goes well.
So I really like that level ofimpact and the amount of people
that we can help and theproblems that we can solve on
(01:32):
almost a global basis, asopposed to just one business.
So, anyway, and it pays alittle bit better, which doesn't
hurt.
So on the show today we havereturning turning, uh, mr colin
doyle hi, colin, howdy, howdy,sir.
(01:52):
And a new face, a new voice,one of my favorite people that I
have met recently in this uhnew role at the place I'm at,
and I just love this guy, jaredcordova how you doing buddy, hey
, mr laptop.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Or and how you doing.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Mr Laptop, that's my dad.
So this is an open, easy peasyconversation.
I mean, really, it's me askingquestions and you guys answering
them.
So this should be prettyinformative for the audience and
easy for you guys, because Ihave asked Colin three or four
times what a consulting engineeris.
I love Colin's.
(02:25):
So first of all, jared you whata consulting engineer is?
I love Colin's.
So first of all, jared, you'rea consulting engineer, right?
Ce?
Yes, sir, and Colin, what isyour title?
Speaker 3 (02:33):
I'm a principal consulting engineer, which means
that I'm like Jared inprinciple.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Oh, I was hoping you're going to tell the other
joke that you can suspendstudents.
Oh right, Exactly.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
I like them both, so the takeaway here is that I'd
never give Andy a straightanswer to any question he ever
asked.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
This is true.
I've known Colin for years and,yeah, he always keeps me
guessing, which is good.
Oh, we got a kitty, hi kitty.
So, guys, let's start out with.
What is this role?
What is a consulting engineer?
What do you guys do when yougot the job description and you
interviewed, like, what is thisthing?
They call consulting engineerand a networking vendor?
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Jared, you go first Cause.
My response is going to becolored by my experience, so
it'll likely be more meandering.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Okay, well, mine's also going to be kind of kind of
using my experience as well.
So I think the I think toexplain a consulting engineer,
you have to explain how nokiaworks when it comes to sales.
Uh, so for us we have anaccount manager who interacts
directly with the customer fromthe beginning of the sale all
the way to the end.
Um, so pre and post sale, theentire.
(03:44):
You know dealing with therelationship, the the beginning
of the sale all the way to theend.
So pre and post sale, theentire.
You know dealing with therelationship the entire time,
right.
And then you have, you know, astep down from that with the
sales engineer.
So the sales engineer, becauseNokia is a pretty big company,
has to know both.
You know IP, so layer two,layer three, technologies, as
well as optical equipment.
You know in terms of like linesystems, right, optical line
(04:07):
systems.
And then you also go on andlook at fixed networks as well
with fiber.
You know ONT, olts there.
So there's a lot oftechnologies that Nokia sells
and for a sales engineer they'recovering a lot, right.
So a lot of times they know alot about.
You know those three areas, butnot super in-depth.
So that's where we come intoplay as a consulting engineer is
(04:28):
that we're able to help them.
When it comes to IP, thecustomer says, ok, I need 50
routers or 50 switches.
What does that look like in mynetwork?
Help them, create a concept, orable to show them, maybe give
(04:50):
them some guidance in terms ofwhat technologies they should
use or what would help them intheir certain case.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
I mean Colin.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
I know that you're much more experienced than me,
so I'm talking very generallyhere.
But for you, I mean, is thatkind of similar?
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Before Colin takes over, I just want to mirror that
back to make sure I understand.
So an SE has a higher level.
They know the breadth and theyou know the expanse of all the
products.
But then once a customer mightland on a particular area, like
you said, maybe an IP network orsomething like that then we
need a specialist like you whocan kind of go a little deeper
in those particular products andtechnologies.
(05:20):
Does that sound fair?
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, it's pretty fair.
I mean, a lot of our SEs arereally good at what they do.
It's generally when we get tothe point where you know it's
either platform specificdifferences right, or getting to
the point where they're tryingto understand what would be the
best implementation or the bestroute to go.
That's where we come in and wegive our opinion on the
situation right.
So mostly they deal with, youknow, the first couple
(05:43):
conversations with the customergetting to a point where they
don't.
They don't know any further,like you know.
Ok, so you know segment routingversus, versus.
You know RCPTE, why, why, howdo I talk to the customer about
this?
Right, how do I, you know, if Iwant them to go segment routing
route because it makes iteasier for them, how do I convey
(06:04):
that in the proper way?
And some sales engineers mightnot know that right.
Some sales engineers are also.
They might be more experiencedin the optical side, they might
be more experienced in the fiberside.
So it just depends kind of ontheir experience as well when we
come in.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
It starts with an understanding of how
organizations like ours go tomarket, and they're all
generally going to have accountteams that map to customer
opportunities or patches orregions, however they get sliced
up, and in that role you'llhave somebody who is on the
sales side of the business andsomebody who's on the
engineering side of the businessyour account manager and your
SE as those individualcontributors essentially the tip
(06:40):
of the spear, the frontlineinterface between the
organization and the customer.
Essentially for any business,this is the business that the
customer will see.
In that role you have to be ageneralist of sorts.
There's a certain minimumamount of information, knowledge
, understanding, sales acumenthat you need to possess across
(07:02):
the entire portfolio.
You might find that youspecialize in certain areas of
that portfolio because they'reinteresting to you, or you have
some form of practicalexperience, or you've pursued
enablement for those types ofproducts because you've seen
value either to yourself orintrinsically in the types of
customers that you support.
I know more about product X andI look at the composition of
the customers I'm responsiblefor.
They're predominantly going tobe interested in product X.
(07:25):
So the more I learn, the betterI can sell as you move away
from the field, that front lineand towards the we'll say
executive suite, somethinghappens and it's different
depending on which side of thatsales versus engineering you're
on.
If you're on the sales side andyou're starting to move up into
(07:46):
the business, towards theC-suite, you're going to be
making more macro decisions,decisions that abstract specific
individual customers and startlooking at revenue and
opportunities at regional andthen area levels.
And if you're an engineer,you're going to get more
specialized by design.
And if you're an engineer,you're going to get more
(08:06):
specialized by design and you'reeither going to remain an
individual contributor and sortof reach the apex, the zenith of
that role, or you're going tobecome a people manager.
And I would look at theconsulting engineer and the
architect those two types oftitles as being maybe even more
the consulting engineer and lessthe architect, because they
generally are more specializedas one of the last individual
(08:28):
contributor roles where you'restill a generalist.
And even within that roleyou're still going to have
people like myself who have alot of data center experience.
There are certainly people onmy team who are more routing
oriented, routing oriented, butwe are oftentimes there to
(08:52):
provide that support once thefield has reached the we'll say
first 60 to 90 minutes worth ofnarrative, sales and baseline
engineering work we've askedthem to do and provide, and
sometimes we'll get pulled inearly because they'll see the
writing on the wall and theywant that expertise early on.
You only make a first impressiononce, obviously, and you want
it to be the right impression soyou might have a specialist
(09:12):
there.
It also depends on the types ofcustomers that you're servicing,
the needs that they have, andeven the title itself can vary.
Having recently been at Juniperand now at Nokia, the role of
consulting engineer could havetwo meanings.
It was a title that wasafforded to a particular pay
grade, which it was just anabstraction.
(09:33):
If you were called a consultingengineer, it meant that you
were this specific grade, and ifyou were called a consulting
engineer in your business card,it could mean any number of
other things, and the wayconsulting engineer was defined
there is different than the wayit's defined here.
So we can make broad statementsabout what it means, but it is
(09:56):
going to be up to the individualthat's pursuing these
opportunities the hiring managerand whatever management
structures wrapped around therole that that pursuing these
opportunities, the hiringmanager, whatever management
structures wrapped around therole that that person might fit
into, to define what theresponsibilities of that person
are going to be.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
I like what you said about the first 60 to 90 minutes
of narrative might be more ofan.
Scam side of the house, wherethen the CE comes in.
That kind of aligns with whatJared said about high-level
product value props and thengetting into the deeper, I guess
, technical dives.
So this is a pre-sales role,correct?
This is?
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Post-sales for this opportunity is pre-sales for the
next one, right?
So it is intended to be thatway, I think.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yeah, I would agree with that, it's.
I would say that it's uh, Iwould say that it's 70, I would
say that it's 60 to 75% uh,pre-sales, and then you know,
obviously after the sale.
Then we help support, um, causewe have a little bit, we have a
little bit deeper uh, you knowexpertise.
So RSE will typically manage onthe on the post-sale side as
(11:04):
well, but we'll help them afterthe sale as well, right, if they
need that, because we also areon the sales side.
So we need to help maintain therelationship with the customer,
make sure that everything worksproperly, not just
theoretically, but in practiceas well.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Well, and let's be honest too.
Once a customer gets yourcontact information, they're
going to reach out to you.
So part of that other 30% isand we're going to take that
call.
That's always, you know it's ifyou're kind of moving from this
place.
If we want everybody's life tobe better, make things easier,
(11:40):
reduce friction, then yeah, wetake the call, and if we need to
push them into a differentworkflow, we do.
But that's, you know it was.
We take the call, and if weneed to push them into a
different workflow, we do.
But that was a good explanation, jared.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
So I think what's interesting to me is that you
two have different backgroundscoming into this role.
So what's the running joke innetworking?
It depends, right.
It's so hard to give one answerto anything really.
But what skills andqualifications might be required
to become a CE in anorganization?
(12:12):
Technical chops, soft skills,things like that.
So maybe this is a good timejust to quickly touch on your
different backgrounds.
So, like Jared, you come inkind of a different way.
I've come into, I've come in asa traditional network engineer
who managed data centers, blah,blah, blah, worked my way
through those ranks to Colin'spoint I was probably going the
architect route, you know andthen wound up at a vendor.
(12:36):
So how did you come to be a CE?
Were you a network engineer bytrade?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, no See, that's a typical right, andy.
So the way that you weretalking about it, that's how a
lot of people evolve into thevendor side.
My case is really, I would say,more unique.
I didn't have any networkingexperience at all.
The only thing close to it wasthat my dad was.
(13:01):
You know, my dad is innetworking.
But beside that, I mean, youknow, I didn't really, when
people say the term networking,I thought it just meant social
networking, like you know.
I thought it just meant, likeyou and I talking to each other,
getting to meet each other.
Like I didn't understand reallywhat the internet was beside
when I needed wifi access toplay call of duty.
So I, you know, like my, mylevel of my my, so you know,
(13:31):
like my, my level of my level ofunderstanding and experience
when it came to knowing, youknow, networking and what it is
was very minimal.
So for me, I was able to joinright out of college.
So right as soon as I graduated, I was able to join a group
called Nifty, which is likestands for Network
Infrastructure, futureTechnological Innovators, super
long term.
But it was a great program andso there were 11 of us that
joined.
There was me and another andanother, another person who
(13:51):
joined and like this specificrole as an IP consulting
engineer, cause, like I saidearlier, nokia is really big, so
there was a lot of roles thatwere filled right.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
So hold on quick pause.
So your major was in what?
Computer science?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
I'm guessing yeah, it was computer science major in
college okay, is the niftyprogram part of where you work?
Speaker 1 (14:07):
is it an?
Is that a nokia branded thing?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
yeah, yeah so it was specifically for our network
infrastructure, uh business, uhbusiness group.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
So they covered roles for ip, for optical and for uh
and for fixed networks so theybring in college grads to kind
of teach them the ropes, likehey, this is a zero to hero yeah
, exactly yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
The idea is that you know it.
It takes a lot longer and andwhat we're seeing now is that,
in comparison to you know, maybewhen you know, maybe when you
all were in college, is thatthere is no information systems
degree anymore, really, likethat's not a popular thing.
Um, now, what the popular thingis is what I did, which was
computer science, programming,ai, ml.
(14:51):
I took those classes in collegeand mostly what we've seen is
that, at least what I've seen isthat everything's moved up the
stack, from focusing on layertwo, layer three, to now or
layer four, to now focusing onlayer seven in college.
So I understood how to create amodel, an ai model, but I
didn't understand the networkingthat went behind it to actually
make it happen.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
So for me it was a complete change of, you know, a
thought process which seemscommon, the more people I've
spoken to on the show over thepast year or two.
Like everybody wants to go intoai and cyber I mean even at the
nugs that I participate in,where it seems like networking
is just less and less attractiveor sexy, right Like nobody or
called out by name, the roadsright.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
I mean, it's not so much networking's gone away.
It obviously hasn't.
We're having this conversationconversation.
The role of it, the role itplays in a network, is now being
abstracted by the tooling thatsits over the top of it, which
is good, because networks don'texist for their own sake.
(15:54):
Networks exist to interconnectthe things that connect to the
network, and I believe theevolution is starting as just
the pull along effect oftechnology and the skill base,
catching up with the role of thenetwork and how we can abstract
its management towards theoperations versus, just like
these individual boxes we haveto log into manually.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Jared, I'm guessing that your dad, who works where
you work, turned you on to theprogram, like, hey, there's this
thing for grads.
You should check it out.
Like, how did you find outabout this program, or it?
Speaker 2 (16:25):
yeah, yeah, I mean, I had, you know, I I was applying
for a while.
I graduated in uh in 2023, so I, I was, I was applying for a
while, kind of.
John mark was down a bit and hepointed me and said, hey, you
know, I saw this, uh, I saw thiskind of really interesting
posting and sent it my way.
Um, I I applied to it notreally thinking anything of it.
To be honest, when I saw Nokia,I did what everybody else
(16:47):
thought, what everybody elsethinks, and I was like, oh, the
phone company got to learn aboutphones now.
So, yeah, it was a goodopportunity.
So far, I mean, I will say Ineed to speak on it a little bit
before Colin gives his side.
I had pretty much when I came on, there were no expectations for
me to understand and be in theIP consulting engineering role
(17:10):
right away.
They understood that I needed tolearn and get up to speed,
especially not having anyexperience with networking.
So I had a good, you know aboutyear buffer before I got, you
know, placed in, placed in theteam with Colin and Igor who
who's you know, one of our othercolleagues to learn, you know,
to learn how my own experiences,and that meant, like you know
(17:31):
protocols, like learning BGP,learning ISIS, you know all the
basic, fundamental things thatyou would get exposed to like in
, you know, in operations, inthe NOC right, and so learning,
learning it from a differentperspective, I think, is what Um
, and so learning, learning itfrom a different perspective, I
think is what, uh, you know isis.
Getting that year buffer wasnice.
Um so, colin, I mean you had adifferent experience.
(17:53):
I mean you've done this kind oflike a little bit more hands-on
, a bit more, a bit more Andy'sway, Um so I like that Andy's
way sounds like a pretty cooldark action flick.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Sounds like a pretty cool dark action flick.
Yeah, I mean, I've been in thisbusiness forever, over 20 years
.
I started as phone support forGateway Computers, which Jared,
you won't remember because thatcompany was dead before you were
old enough to care about a Idon't know, I mean somebody.
(18:25):
As a young child you might haveseen a box that had a design
that looked like a Holstein cowon the outside.
That would have been a Gatewaycomputer box.
That might have beeninteresting to you at that age.
Yeah, I'm in the seat that I'min not because I went through a
technology ROTC program likeJared, which is essentially what
those types of college programsare.
(18:47):
He got there because there wasa very specific lane.
I have my role because I had tomake a conscious pivot.
Let me back up.
You're always going to bepresented in this industry with
the choice to be a more focusedindividual contributor, like
(19:11):
your opportunities for growth ifthat's something you're
interested in, moving up thefood chain, so to speak.
And I know tons of people thatare very happy to be field
sellers, and rightly so, becausethe biggest pay cut I ever took
was not leaving the field as anSE and moving into the business
into an architect role.
So start by understanding howyou're going to define your own
(19:34):
personal success.
That's just before you make anydecisions.
It's so critical to be honestabout what you want and it could
just be money, sure For me.
I always had the same answerwhenever I go into a performance
review about what you want, andit could just be money, sure
For me.
I always had the same answerwhenever I go into a performance
review about what do I want tobe.
When I grow up to the pointwhere my bosses stopped asking
me and it was always this that Ifelt like I was successful if I
(19:56):
could measure the impact I washaving on a business on broader
terms.
So the next thing that I wantedwasn't a specific role ever, it
was always just is what'savailable to me, something that
I can look around and say youknow I'm having an impact and
it's helping more people?
When you're in a field seller,you're actually working on an
account team.
You're incredibly important tothe book of customers that you
(20:20):
have.
You're contributing to yourteam's number in that region
that you're in.
But that gets abstracted moreand more as you move up to the
macro business on a global level, right.
So me moving into anarchitecture team from the field
in my last job was really aboutme being able to help more
(20:40):
people and, to put a finer pointon the money side of that, I
went from carrying I think itwas like a $12 or $13 million
number to carrying a $1 billionnumber, because essentially I
picked up all of North Americaenterprise sales as a number.
So any accelerator tables got,they were just gone.
Like I was never.
I wasn't making my ability tohit attainment went away, but I
(21:04):
was fulfilled and it wassatisfying.
So I had to start by decidingwhat you want to do and then, do
you want to be an individualcontributor or do you want to be
a people manager?
Because it's two completelydifferent skill sets that you
need to develop.
I've been both.
I like being an individualcontributor.
I also find that these types ofroles are more immediately
(21:26):
impactful.
I've got more agency to dothings that I want to do, versus
if I'm managing people, which Ienjoy greatly.
It just I don't know.
It wasn't the seat that wasavailable at the time when I was
making my decisions.
You said, andy I have a notehere.
It says you.
You said zero to hero talkingabout Jared's journey and I
(21:50):
wanted to correct you becausewe're in tech.
It's actually just zero to one.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
You know it's but if we can turn that, zero into a
one.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
We're doing great.
So, um, I w, I want to.
I want to laugh at the factthat Jared's like you know,
you're learning basic stuff likeBGP and ISIS.
I'm like you know you'relearning basic stuff like BGP
and ISIS.
I'm like, really Like I waslearning about the OSI model
Like basic.
To me was a differentconversation, but I'm really
fascinated in just how you hadyou came to this, starting with
computer science and programmingversus me, which was like
(22:20):
learning CLIs and also having tolearn all the stuff that's now
dead, like EIGRP and frame relayand stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Oh, my God, they're my two darlings.
I love, I love those twotechnologies, jared.
Correct me if I'm wrong, butsomething I'm hearing in
multiple places over the pastyear or two is there's not that
much networking covered incomputer science curriculum?
Is that accurate?
Year or two is there's not thatmuch networking covered in
computer science curriculum?
Is that accurate?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
yeah, no, there's really not.
At least, uh, at least at myuniversity there wasn't um.
You know like in in ourcurriculum it was python first.
Those were our first twoclasses.
You get pretty proficient withit.
Then you do a little bit ofjava kind of web development.
So you learn about, you know umyou learn about cicd.
Uh, you know.
Uh, with you know, you learnabout CICD.
You know, with web developertools, so I use, like Eclipse,
(23:09):
you know, obviously I use VSCode, that's, that's every, it's
every programmer's favorite.
You know IDE and you know, Iwould say like, genuinely, I
really didn't learn anythingabout networking until I went to
the front, like until I startedworking on a front end project
with one of my professors mysenior year, and at that point
(23:30):
the only thing that I had seenwas how to kind of deal with the
server.
Uh, so it wasn't even like realnetworking, it wasn't really
understanding, it was just, uh,it was just, how do I
communicate with this, with thisserver?
And that's still not even youknow on on the networking layer,
right?
So I wasn't doing any protocolwork.
(23:51):
I forgot to mention this, andy,but I think the most important
thing for me and why I ended upwanting to get into this role
and wanting to be in the Niftygroup, was because when I looked
at the role and I looked at theCE requirements, I always had
wanted to do something where Icould be technical but I could
also use my people skills and Iwanted to be able to talk to
people every day, but I didn'twant to sit in an office and I
(24:11):
didn't want to be an accountmanager and have to talk to
people every day, and I wantedthere to be days where I could
just, you know, work and be anerd.
You know, I feel like I feellike this role really gives you
the best of both worlds.
I feel like there's days whereyou know and Colin can
definitely talk on this as welland I feel like, andy, even you
can too.
I know that you're doing yourown labbing and you've been
having your own fun.
Recently We've been talking,you know, going back and forth
(24:31):
about learning how to do it.
I didn't even know how to SSHbefore I came to Nokia, and I
knew how to do Python, knew howto do Java, I even learned
Haskell, which is an oldfunctional programming language.
So it yeah, the curriculum'sout of whack a little bit, I
would say.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
So I've heard that in a lot of different places, like
you know.
Oh, why don't we have enoughpeople coming into networking
while they're not teaching it,it seems like?
And then what you do, what youare exposed to, is like yeah,
well, there's this network thing.
Nobody cares about becauseeverything's abstracted, but ooh
, let's secure the network withcyber or AI or you know, or
whatever it is.
And just a quick question whenyou graduated with a computer
science major, what type of jobswere you applying for?
(25:09):
And they said, like the marketwasn't great, but it wasn't
networking.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Oh yeah, I mean, it was anything.
It was anything.
Software developer.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Software dev yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Back in front end.
Honestly, I was even doing UIand UX jobs too.
I was applying for thosebecause I had a little bit of
experience with that, but I meanit was across the board, Job
market was just not great.
But thankfully I ended upgetting this program.
They took a chance on me and Iwill say that the most enticing
thing that they saw on my resumewas that I had experience with
AI and ML, which is kind of likeright In terms of experience.
(25:41):
I took a couple of classes, Ibuilt my own models, I got
hands-on work with it from theapplication side and I actually
did my presentation when I was.
I did a presentation to myinterviewers at the time and it
ended up being a lot of mymanagers now and that was one of
(26:01):
the biggest things that theysaw that I understood the
technology.
But then they had asked methrough it like, okay, so how
would this apply to the network,right?
So what do these models do tothe network?
And I couldn't answer at thetime.
I had no idea.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
There's two things, and then I'll hand it over to
Colin, who looks like he hassomething to say.
I like what you said aboutyou're a tech nerd who also
likes people, and there are ahandful of roles.
Again, it pays way less andit's very physical, but I love
my time as a cable guy becauseit is super duper technical.
You have to know a ton of verydeep technical things, but I
(26:32):
have eight jobs a day.
I'm going to eight differentplaces and I'm meeting new
people and there's differentchallenges and I really like
that person.
And when I got on the datacenter side in production, I'm
like, oh, thank God, I don'thave to deal with people yelling
at me anymore and I relish that.
Good, now it's just me and thekeyboard.
And what's interesting is,after years of doing that five,
six years I started to miss thepeople side.
(26:54):
I miss the interactions withpeople and I really like a
couple roles that I've had atvendors.
It's very technical, but it'salso very communicative what
some might call soft skills.
The other thing I wanted to askyou and then I'll shut up is
you graduated what?
A couple years ago, I guess.
When did you graduate college?
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Yeah, 2023.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
All right, and you've been working a little while.
Looking backward, you have alittle bit of perspective now.
Do you think and I'm notadvocating for it, it's just
something I've been talkingabout in different places Do you
think we are doing a disserviceto the kids in computer science
by not teaching networking?
Or has our tooling gotten goodenough that we don't really have
(27:37):
to teach the networking basics,because we're just going to
overlay everything and press themagic button and everything
will be fine?
I'm being a little facetious,right, but yeah, that's, that's
the extreme end of the right,like, well, we don't have to if
we're not teaching computerscience majors networking, who
are going to go out and buildsoftware and systems and e
commerce platforms and AI, likeI just don't know.
(27:59):
As a networking person, my biasis like how dare they?
You have to teach networking.
Do you think, think, would youprefer to learn more networking?
Or I mean, it's working out foryou, so it's fine.
But are we screwing up ourindustry by not teaching it in
computer science?
Speaker 2 (28:12):
I guess is the question, in my opinion.
Yeah, I think that even now,like the more that I've looked
at it, even though we had, youknow, that program where we had
11 new grads come in I mean Ilook around at the industry and
I see people who are in myequivalent role, right, all my
peers.
You know, it's definitely anaging industry and it's a skill
(28:37):
set that is needed for us tosustain our society, honestly,
and I don't think that it'ssociety in terms of, like the
internet, and I don't think thatwe're at the point where we can
just say automation is going totake over everything, because
people don't trust automation,right, they don't trust the
tools that we create from asoftware perspective, and I
don't blame them, because noneof them have really worked to
(28:59):
the point that everyone can say,okay, this is the tool that we
can go with, right, this works.
So I think, genuinely, I alsowould have loved to understand,
like I would have loved to takenetworking like one course of it
in college, just so I canunderstand, okay, so I
understand the application side.
I kind of understand that, likeyou know, my application gets
from here to there, but how doesthat actually happen?
(29:21):
Right, how does you know what isa packet?
What is a frame?
What are you know fiber?
What is a frame?
What are you know fiber?
What is that?
Like light bouncing in a glasstube?
What does that even mean?
Right?
So I feel like actuallyunderstanding that and
understanding how yourinformation gets from point A to
point B would be just.
It would be beneficial toeverybody who takes a computer
science class, because then theycan understand the underlay of
(29:44):
what they're doing.
So I'll leave it with that, butI think that we should take
note.
I think networking classesshould be required for people to
take in the future.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Fair Kyle.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
First a minor correction.
Jared said fiber in a glasstube.
The fiber optics we have arestill solid glass on the inside.
The light bounces around insidethe actual solid glass.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Still learning.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
I think the cladding on the glass.
I mean, if we really want to bepedantic about it, there's
cladding on the outside thatmakes it refract back in.
But I digress.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
We can have a whole nother discussion on, like
Raleigh scattering and hydroxyllimits and all that.
Oh, it's fascinating to see howwe optimize the glass that we
put in fiber optics and theconsiderations the Raleigh
scattering in particular.
That's also the reason why thesky is blue during the day.
The sky is blue during the day.
So one of the challenges, Ithink, with having a network
(30:49):
anything in a collegeenvironment, is that networking
isn't really a degree.
Networking is a vocationaltrade.
If you look at the first coursethat any certification program
for networking teaches acrossany vendor, they're all going to
be the same Basic OSI modelstuff.
You're going to learn whatevervariation of that stack Mine was
(31:14):
please do not touch Steve's petalligator to remember the
different first letters for thedifferent parts of the OSI model
.
That class is taught in a week.
That class is taught in a weekand because of that a networking
program at a college is goingto, you know, maybe a credit.
I think that they and I'm notsaying that the value isn't
(31:35):
there, it's just the value isn'tthere in a way that's
sufficient to maybe I mean.
I've seen these courses at thelocal community colleges and
it's like once a week and allthat.
I think it's important.
I think it's important.
I think I can understand atleast why we don't see people
coming out of college withnetworking.
Honestly Jared, the way thatyou came to this role is far
(31:57):
more representative of at leastthe feeling we all had about
where the industry was going,potentially a bit more
abstracted from the networkingthan I might have thought.
But if networking is still ayeoman's trade, then you can
learn the generalized curriculumthat a computer science degree
(32:19):
delivers, which is really just abig thick how things work book
about just the relationship,just the relationship between
you.
Know great, it's all ones andzeros.
So like, if I feed thisinformation into this system,
how is it going to be processingit?
And that information, that kindof like I can learn how the
motor works, but I still need togo be trained to be a
specialist on specific engines,right, like it takes like four
(32:44):
times longer to become a Ferraricertified mechanic than it does
to become a CCMP.
So, as an example, in terms oflike how many hours of training
that you have to receive beforeyou can receive the
certification.
So I think that what you'redoing, jared, and where you are
right now is where we've allexpected the industry to go, and
(33:05):
I think also the progressionmakes sense that you get all
that baseline information andthe network as a physical
representation of where we aretoday in this industry is sort
of secondary to the primaryeducation that you need, the
education that I'm sure Andy andI I can at least speak for
myself wish we had received.
(33:26):
Education that I'm sure Andyand I I can at least speak for
myself wish we had received.
I mean, I'm happy to have thedegree that I have, but now I
need to go out and teach myselfthe stuff that you were taught
by others with where theindustry is going, then somebody
(33:46):
who might have had, like if Iwere to take myself from 10
years ago a traditionalnetworking experience and plot
myself in here, I would haveeven less of an idea of what the
hell I was doing.
And that's saying something,considering.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
I wake up every morning like how did I get here,
what's going on, and I think Iwanted to add onto that, because
I think one of the you know wetalked about how it kind of
needs to be a requirement atleast that's what I said and
also Colin was talking about how, you know we're saying a little
bit.
You know how there should be alittle bit more.
(34:18):
You know networking in generaland that you guys kind of have
assumed this.
You know, people who are in theindustry now have assumed that
at least the talent coming outdoesn't really have as much
experience, and that's, for themost part, really true.
I think the nice thing you knowabout being in a consulting
engineering role is that you doget to be, you know, you do get
to go out there, you do get tosee what's going on in the
(34:39):
industry, and I think that youknow I went to AutoCon and Colin
we were at AutoCon together.
You know, andy, you were thereat autocon too.
I think we might have met eachother there for the first time.
I don't remember but, um, butyeah.
So when we were there we met,you know, we met a few college
kids and and they were, uh, youknow the event was in denver and
we had met some people from,you know the university of
colorado, boulder, and you knowthey were showing us that in a
(35:01):
uh, it was a, it was a master'sdegree that they were working on
and it's, honestly, I thinkit's well known across the US
and in the networking industrythat you know, professor Levi, I
think it's Perigo from you know, uh, you know from from an
abstract perspective as well, bycreating their own tools and
stuff.
And I did want to shout themout a little bit because I think
(35:31):
that that's something that'ssuper cool and I wish I would
have even known about thatbefore I graduated because,
honestly, I probably would havejust gone and done a master's
degree there and then gone anddone networking after.
So, uh, yeah, I think I thinkhaving at least a master's
degree like that you know, at afew more colleges would be nice,
but I think the visibility ofopportunities like that is
(35:55):
really low, especially innetworking, and Colin mentioned
that earlier.
Networking has you don't bringup the name.
Everyone thinks of it as socialnetworking.
It's not.
Computer networking is a veryit's an unseen term.
People don't use it as often Ithink.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Well, and if you want to grow like going the master's
route, getting into technology.
This is why it's so importantto try to understand how you're
going to find yourself,fulfillment within the IT space
if this is the career path thatyou decide to take.
When I think about what I wantto do, there's a split.
(36:31):
It's like the technology isgreat, I like the people stuff,
I like the management stuff.
If I were to go back to schooland get a master's degree right
now, it would be in business andfinance.
It would be a continuation ofthe degree I already have.
Ultimately, if you move fartherup in the business and you get
closer to the C-suite,everything that you talk about
(36:54):
is going to have to be definedwithin the framework of business
outcomes.
You have to measure the growthof things, the revenue, the
attainment.
You have to measure the growthof things, the revenue, the
attainment.
I'm sure we're going to get toa point later in this discussion
where we're talking about folksputting in resumes and applying
for these types of positions.
(37:15):
I'm going to touch on thatagain.
Then I would be focusing onsoft skills, but that's just
because I'm looking at a veryspecific place in the future you
can reach the apex of theindividual contributor role as
well.
There's a point where you'renot going to be able to be a
(37:35):
generalist anymore and by thetime you get into a consulting
engineer role, you've alreadygot your feet in that pool.
The next step, if you move outof this team and onto another
team, is, generally speaking,going to be a product line
manager, a technical marketingengineer, somebody who's going
to be aligned with a specifictechnology, and then, beyond
that, if you decide to build themuscle, you might get into some
(37:57):
of the more engineering stuff.
But the, frankly, the role of aconsulting engineer how it's
been defined here where we workand in my previous role, is just
an amazing place to be becauseyou do get to touch a lot of the
parts of the business.
(38:18):
We've talked about a lot of thecustomer-facing stuff and the
field support.
We're also this connectivetissue between the strategic
decisions that are being madethat inform products and
technologies and features thatgo into software and the inputs
that are coming in from thefield, and occupying that space,
(38:40):
that interlock space, is a veryincredibly important part of
what we do.
It's also very interesting.
It gives you a lot of exposureto kind of the heartbeat of
what's going on in the differentparts of the business.
So this ending up in this rolesomewhere along your journey, I
think, is a good thing, becauseit gives you a lot of line of
(39:04):
sight on all the differentthings that you could do next.
Or you can just stay here.
Our boss, jared, and I's bosswe have the same boss, which
I'll be sure to mention to himthat you wish you'd stayed in
school and not come right toNokia to him.
(39:27):
I'll let him know, um, thathe's been here for like 20 years
and recently there was anopening that came up and we all
had some sort of this collectiveanxiety where we would have
been really happy for him if hehad taken the the role.
It would have been a hugepromotion, he would have crushed
it.
But we're also like but alsostay here with us please,
because he was so awesome and hedecided to stay and I say that
intentionally.
He decided he could have goneand done that.
If he just said yeah, I'll doit, boom.
There's just no way.
(39:47):
He's been here for so long,he's so good, he's so well liked
.
We ended up with somebody who'sgood and well liked in the role.
It's no problem.
But be honest, too, withyourself about what you want to
do, because if you find yourselfin a place where you're really
happy, there might always be avoice in your head that's saying
yeah, but if you're not movingforward, if you lose this
(40:11):
inertia that you have, you'renot succeeding.
It's like you can find anddefine your success wherever you
like.
So if you find something whereyou're happy, you're comfortable
and you like the people and theculture and everything else
around you also, don't be afraidto stay there, and being a
consulting engineer is a prettycool place to stay.
(40:31):
I've had this role in one wayor another for probably four or
five years, and it's just.
You get to touch so manydifferent things.
It's so neat.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
I second what the smart guy said, Andy.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Totally.
We're just about at the endhere, so I'm going to ask you
guys, I guess, my last question,which is a two parter what is
your favorite and least favoritepart about the job, or pro and
a con, or the thing you love themost and hate the most?
Whatever, give me the twoopposite ends of like this
part's great and this partstinks.
And do you have any partingadvice for network operators
(41:12):
that are interested in this role, what it sounds like, the cool
stuff that they'd be able to do,besides doing what either one
of you guys did, which is startat Gateway Computers in the 90s
or go to computer science and doan ROTC program?
Best part of the job, worstpart of the job and parting
advice?
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Do you want to go first, Colin?
I'd be happy to go first.
Jared needs a minute.
Speaker 3 (41:37):
Collective thoughts I'll vamp for a while.
We're at the hub of this wheelthat is spinning, which means
that we get to see a lot ofdifferent things.
We get to help a lot of people.
We also get to define our work,by and large, on our own.
There's some high-levelexpectations that get placed on
(41:57):
us and this isn't unique, Ithink, to our leadership,
although we've got a pretty goodleader or our company in
general, although we got apretty good leader or our
company in general.
This position.
There is quite a bit ofautonomy, but it's it's earned
through the all the things youdid before it.
Uh, least favorite thing andthis is just a personal thing
for me, um, and it is not, yeah,not a complaint, it's a, it's a
(42:20):
me thing um, sometimes I do theautonomy is almost a little bit
too much for me.
So I will find myself settingup meetings and just there's
some anxiety I get in my head.
When I was a, I'm like am Idoing the right thing?
Is this providing value topeople?
Are the things that I want towork on aligned with the
(42:41):
priorities of the business?
And it's a lot clearer ifyou're a field seller what your
responsibilities are.
You've got a book of customers,you've got a quota that you're
carrying, you've got a portfolioof products and just go do the
thing.
So you do need to possess thetools and the skills within this
(43:02):
role to keep yourself busy andmake sure that the things that
you're busying yourself with aremeaningful within the scope of
what your responsibilities are.
And then, jerry, you can go andthen we can get to the advice.
Unless you have a longtimelines and ambiguity.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
I think we're the.
Yeah, it's, and that's just hitme at vendor.
Some people thrive in that andI thrive, but it's, and that's
just hit me at vendor.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
Some people thrive in that and I I thrive, but it's
still like I I'll get in my ownhead about it.
And so, like I have 30different notepad windows open
at the same time and you know,click up that I gotta blow the
dust.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
You know my, my actual task tracking tool that I
use once a week, you know, justlike that jared, yeah, uh, I'll
say, uh, it's not necessarilysomething I dislike, it's
something that it's somethingyou have to deal with, um, and
particularly because of my Iguess situation where I'm very
(43:59):
new to networking uh, still veryI honestly would consider, you
know, almost being in this fortwo years, still very new.
I think the most difficultthing is, like Colin was talking
about you know, how we have tounderstand both the technical
and the business side, right,and what we do is it's our
products are applied, you knowapplied business, right.
So how can they, how can theyuse our products, how can they
(44:21):
use our services in a way thatit boosts their company and
their sales and that, you know,they make more revenue, right?
I think that the hardest thingto understand is, you know,
understanding every customer'sstory.
Uh, in terms of understanding,like that they'll use some art,
what I call like archaic.
You know technologies, uh, youknow, call like archaic.
(44:43):
You know technologies.
Uh, you know SNMP, uh, you know, and, um, and you just kind of
have to understand, like, whythose are rooted in in, you know
, in, a customer and how to kindof like talk them out of that,
right, and maybe some other.
There's so many things that youhave to understand.
You know, like, even call andtalk about frame relay uh, you
know, obviously I'm never goingto see it in the future, but I
(45:03):
still have to understand what itwas, and you know, some people
grew up.
You know, some people have notgrew up, but they lived through
that.
They lived through thesetechnologies and lived through
the evolution, Right.
So you not only have tounderstand the now and also the
future when you're a CEO, butyou also have to understand the
past and how to properlycommunicate with someone, how to
(45:25):
get them from the past to maybethe present or maybe in the
future, right.
So that's the only thing that Iwould say is like kind of
difficult to deal with.
The one thing I love, though,is, like colin was saying, is
the autonomy of I'm never bored.
I there.
I I literally could findsomething new every day, and we
talked about this adhd.
Pretty sure all three of ushere have ad.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Does anybody in tech not have it?
It's a thing.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
Yeah, no, I think the nice thing is that I'm never
bored.
If I want to learn somethingand I want to become like a mini
expert in it, I can do that,and I can also rely on people
like Colin to help me and helpteach me something.
Right?
I think that I use my team alot to help pass their knowledge
, and I feel like we do thatwith each other because we're
the best resources for eachother.
(46:09):
Right, we know a lot about you,know our little areas, and
Collins taught me so much indifferent areas.
I mean, this guy is a frickingencyclopedia and, andy, you've
taught me a lot about a lot.
You've taught me a lot aboutthe experience of uh, you know
of, of an, of, of an operatorLike, we've talked about that a
little bit.
And you've also told me about.
You know how importantrelationships can be, especially
in the networking community,because networking community is
(46:31):
very unique, but that's anotherthing.
I'll say it's my, it's tied fornumber one.
I love this community man Ihave not met.
I haven't met too many badpeople.
I can't even think of themright now.
Everyone here has been sosupportive and everyone just
wants to generally learn.
They just want to be nerdstogether and it's so cool to be
part of an industry thateveryone wants to be a nerd.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
Nerds.
I want to be respectful ofeverybody's time and I think
we're at time.
So where can folks find you two?
If they are an aspiring CE andthey want to reach out and get
more information and maybe someadvice from you, where can they
find you?
Speaker 3 (47:06):
I'm shutting your wrap up down, I do have a piece
of advice Develop your softskills.
You can find me on LinkedIn.
I think it's like cdoyle-pdx orsomething, but if you look for
Colin Doyle, nokia, you'll findme.
I also have a YouTube channel,but go to LinkedIn and all the
stuff you can find.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
Another networking channel.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
It is yet another networking channel.
Yeah, another number I'mturning on the content hose
because I had to do a bunch ofinternal stuff first, so I'm not
getting too bold about pointingpeople there, because there's
really just one silly video andthen one less silly video on
EVPN.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn.
My advice is just, if you'resomebody who wants to combine
both the uh, both your softskills and the technical side
and never be bored also, I mean,you'll be stressed, but you'll
never be bored looking at beinga CE, it's going to be the best
thing that you do.
People do this job for 20, 30years for a reason, and you get
to meet people like Colin and Iand Andy.
(48:01):
So, um, yeah, I w, I woulddefinitely look into it.
Um, linkedin, I have anInstagram.
Uh, it's Dova D O V A.
If you guys want to, you guyswant to say hi.
So I'm open to anything.
My DMS are open.
So thanks for having us on here, andy, appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
Sliding the Jared's DMS, as the kids say he plays
rugby, so he can track hisvarious head.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
Yeah, Thanks so much for coming on, guys.
This was very insightful for me.
Thank you for answering all thequestions and giving us some
insight into yet another awesomevendor role that you, as a
network engineer or operator,can look into.
Hit us up, ask questions Forall things.
Art of NetEng.
You can go to our link tree,linktreecom forward slash.
Art of Network Engineering.
All the things are there, Mostnotably our Discord server
(48:46):
called it's All About theJourney Thousands of people in
there helping each other withstudying, with problems, and
just chatting and lifting eachother up day to day saying hi.
So if you don't have acommunity, it's one you can
check out.
As always, thanks for listeningand we'll catch you next time
on the Art of NetworkEngineering podcast.
Hey folks, If you like what youheard today, please subscribe
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