Starting my career in networking

[isaiahgoveait]

Hello Network Experts, sorry for the long winded explanation, but I am looking for some advice and insight. To start, I am a Florida resident that lives in the Orlando area, I am 21 years old, I have my A+ certification that I got in August 2016, and I am 3 years into my IT career with technical support experience. I have worked at Geek Squad as a consultant agent for 2 years and I currently work for an ISP that was known as Bright House Networks now known as Spectrum for a little over 1 year now. When I first joined Bright House, the network engineering operations team had left the Florida facility three months into the position, on to Colorado, Oregon, and Texas. Which now leaves me with no option to move up within the company for advancement.

I am currently studying for the CCNA R&S, i've been studying for over a month now and I've gotten to the point where I am starting to learn configurations of the IOS, Subnetting, VLSM, the fundamentals.

When was working at Geek Squad I would have to troubleshoot a customer's computers. rather it be Hardware or software related I would have to come to a quick solution to get it repaired I would managed antivirus programs I would fix Outlook issues I would run data backups and really it boiled down to a lot of troubleshooting and customer service experience. At the ISP I have gained different experience troubleshooting over the phone with a customer due to me being on the phones 100% of the time I had to become very descriptive and very detail oriented st describing a troubleshooting step rather it be the (TCP IP, configuring a router, troubleshooting and configuring Wireless Communications, conduct wireless surveys, logging and reporting issues in the customer's region, I would read for the most part layer one of the OSI model and read the reports from that aspect.)

Current projects:
Now as far as my skill building at home goes, I have purchased 17 Cisco devices which contain routers, switches, and firewalls.
[Routers:
Cisco (5x) 2821
Cisco (3x) 1841
Cisco (2x) 2620XM
Cisco (1x) 2621XM
Cisco (1x) 2811
Firewalls:
Cisco (2x) 5520
Switches:
Cisco (2x) 3550
Cisco (1x) 3560]

I'm creating a home lab with a you virtual machines creating an environment of Windows and Linux utilizing Active Directory. At the same time I am starting to work on Python programming, Red Hat, and making a SAN.

At this point, I am very bored at the job or I have nothing else to learn or expand on at the ISP. I really enjoy doing hands-on with computers and problem solving new issues that arrise. i've been looking at desktop support roles or even level one NOC positions. It is a very competitive market, applying online then having to follow up with that hiring manager and not getting response back. I know it is a struggle for my age and I know I must keep learning and growing.

So this leads me to ask what is your advice of where I should be placing myself into with work that would give me more Hands-On experience, rather than phone support? Thanks look forward to hearing what you think.

[that1guy15]

Awesome job on getting the home lab going. Its where the vast majority of your experience and growth will come from for a bit. Keep the pressure on your certs and growth.

If you feel you are stalling and not growing any with your current role then its time to start looking around. Utilize this time to beef up your skills during downtime and off hours. Dont just look for a job that fits perfect for you. Find a job that will push you and help you gain exposure. Its not un-common to bounce around jobs the first 5+ years of your carreer. You will grow faster than most companies can keep up.

Focus yourself on a core technology, the one you are most passionate about. But learn as much as possible about all areas of IT you can. Linux, virtualization, containers and M$ are all skills that will help move you to the top of the list when looking for a new gig.

"T-Shaped skills" is what you are aiming for.
http://blog.ipspace.net/2015/05/on-i-shaped-and-t-shaped-skills.html

[deanwebb]

You might want one or two more switches.

But seriously, that's a pretty good rack of stuff there. Time to work on certs while applying for junior network administrator and/or junior network engineer roles. If you can get a job at a small business as *THE* IT Guy, you will learn everything in a hurry, I can guarantee you that.

As you see a topic in your study, lab it up. Don't just read the IOS commands in the cert guides, type them in and compare your results with what you see in the books and see if you notice differences across IOS versions, hardware platforms, etc. Trying the same command on a switch, router, and firewall can produce some interesting learning opportunities.

Above all, use your lab to break stuff. By that, I mean set things up just right so that they're working well and then put your gear into debug mode and watch the error messages as you change the config so that your lab is improperly configured. Break different things to get different messages and learn to recognize them for what they tell you.

You don't need to memorize debug error messages, but in reading them and looking them up, you'll see how they correlate back to whatever problem you're having. Show commands are just as helpful, so check those as well.

[isaiahgoveait]

Awesome job on getting the home lab going. Its where the vast majority of your experience and growth will come from for a bit. Keep the pressure on your certs and growth.

If you feel you are stalling and not growing any with your current role then its time to start looking around. Utilize this time to beef up your skills during downtime and off hours. Dont just look for a job that fits perfect for you. Find a job that will push you and help you gain exposure. Its not un-common to bounce around jobs the first 5+ years of your carreer. You will grow faster than most companies can keep up.

Focus yourself on a core technology, the one you are most passionate about. But learn as much as possible about all areas of IT you can. Linux, virtualization, containers and M$ are all skills that will help move you to the top of the list when looking for a new gig.

"T-Shaped skills" is what you are aiming for.
http://blog.ipspace.net/2015/05/on-i-shaped-and-t-shaped-skills.html

Thanks for that advice and insight, yes I am going full sail with these certs and constant growing in learning all of this technology. As far as leaving to another place to challenge me for growth, for the most part I've been looking to work with an MSP (managed service provider) or VAR (value added reseller). Do you have any experience with any of the two types of provider models? And I have noticed they all have to work around a SaaS model as well if I'm correct, so should I start learning AWS or Azure too?

Sent from my LGMS550 using Tapatalk

[isaiahgoveait]

You might want one or two more switches.

But seriously, that's a pretty good rack of stuff there. Time to work on certs while applying for junior network administrator and/or junior network engineer roles. If you can get a job at a small business as *THE* IT Guy, you will learn everything in a hurry, I can guarantee you that.

As you see a topic in your study, lab it up. Don't just read the IOS commands in the cert guides, type them in and compare your results with what you see in the books and see if you notice differences across IOS versions, hardware platforms, etc. Trying the same command on a switch, router, and firewall can produce some interesting learning opportunities.

Above all, use your lab to break stuff. By that, I mean set things up just right so that they're working well and then put your gear into debug mode and watch the error messages as you change the config so that your lab is improperly configured. Break different things to get different messages and learn to recognize them for what they tell you.

You don't need to memorize debug error messages, but in reading them and looking them up, you'll see how they correlate back to whatever problem you're having. Show commands are just as helpful, so check those as well.

I will definitely look into getting some more switches

Now is there any 3rd party software like network monitoring software I should add to the Homelab? To be more specific, can you list some great softwares I should utilize that is being used for monitoring and network management?

And for Python maybe you can send an article or give some insight on Python with network automation for the future? You think this will be the main skill set for the future since we're headed in a Cloud direction?

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[icecream-guy]

WARNING:  it seems to me that you are spreading yourself way too thin trying to learn all these technologies at once, if you want to be a network engineer, focus on the routing and switching first, once you get that down, then you can play with python, storage, security, SQL, automation, or whatever else you want to learn.  Past experience on spreading myself too thin led to lack of focus, inability to remember all the details, ended up in frustration, and eventually to regroup and focus on what facet of networking was of most interest to me at he time R&S.

[wintermute000]

If you feel you are stalling and not growing any with your current role then its time to start looking around. Utilize this time to beef up your skills during downtime and off hours. Dont just look for a job that fits perfect for you. Find a job that will push you and help you gain exposure. Its not un-common to bounce around jobs the first 5+ years of your carreer. You will grow faster than most companies can keep up.

Focus yourself on a core technology, the one you are most passionate about. But learn as much as possible about all areas of IT you can. Linux, virtualization, containers and M$ are all skills that will help move you to the top of the list when looking for a new gig.

"T-Shaped skills" is what you are aiming for.
http://blog.ipspace.net/2015/05/on-i-shaped-and-t-shaped-skills.html

Great advice here.


Focus on CCNA and R&S for now until you nail it. Then spread out - if you are interested in cloud/automation then a RHCSA is a solid foundation as its all linux based.


From there, work out what kind of specialty you want to delve into further.


Your lab is a fantastic start, though I'd add that once you get past CCNA, start looking at virtualising your lab - I pretty much do all labbing with VMs. Check out EVE-NG. That can also be a nice segway into VMware or to keep developing linux (KVM/Qemu) skills.


Ain't no certs for python/ansible devops stuff, you just gotta practice it. Just don't think its some kind of magic bullet - you can't automate what you don't understand


Finally, don't get discouraged by how much there is to learn. Lots of us here have been doing this for many, many years and we're all still constantly learning (which is kinda depressing LOL). I didn't pick up VMware or python overnight, that's for sure.

[deanwebb]

Personally, about all I know about BGP is how to spell it and that it is important.

But, even though I'm specialized in security, I know my routing and switching basics because that's what all the cool network engineers learn.

[isaiahgoveait]

This is reassuring to hear, okay so I will take it to the roots first, Routing and Switching. Then of course spread out. I do get pretty overwhelmed yet excited when I see the roles and responsibilities for all of these network engineering jobs asking for multiple skills at hand.

Thank you everyone for the advice, I will now continue learning more CBT nuggets/books and playing around with my lab.

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[icecream-guy]

Dont just look for a job that fits perfect for you. Find a job that will push you and help you gain exposure.

Great advice here.

unfortunately that's what recruiters are looking for. someone that has today's needed skills and experience for today's jobs with no concern on the future. So to find that job that will push and help you get exposed, you'll need to develop those people networking skills and maintain those relationships with peers in the industry.