A word of advice from you's wise guys..

[config t]

TLDR; Made some mistakes, bounced back, and looking for advice on which knowledge domains I should focus on for future career growth and prospects.


I went through some career ADD over the last couple years, but I'm back on track and could use some advice as I'm figuring out which direction to forge ahead into next.

My decision to stop working, move to Bangkok "and do the CCIE," back in June of 2016 after I wrapped up 2-years of contracting in the Middle East turned into a full rout back to the U.S. the following November. I will let you use your imagination as to how hard I was actually studying.

From there I didn't work for almost a year, with the exception of a Net Admin job that lasted all of 2 months before I quit. They literally paid me $80k to do nothing but clean up TR's and do patch panel work. It was a joke, and the people I worked with were arrogant to boot. Not my type of atmosphere. I actually went through quite the rut during this time and had some depression.

October 2017 I moved to Charleston, SC for a Deployment Engineer role and did a little bit of work installing and configuring security suites at military hospitals. I stayed on for about 7 months because they had promised 75%+ travel CONUS/OCONUS and kept saying "It's going to pick up soon." They hired way too many deployment people way too fast and just didn't have the work ready for us to do. I saw the writing on the wall and jumped ship. Last I heard the outfit I was working for lost their contract not long after I left.

I'm working for a maritime company now and I'm out in Japan supporting the Navy. Things are going pretty good, the job is super stable and pays well enough, but I've fallen out of networking. I work with one other guy and we are basically LAN/System Admin and IA technician all rolled into one job. I hate to say it, because I think I sound arrogant, but the job is really easy and there isn't a lot I haven't done before. With all the time I have at sea I've been firing on all cylinders knocking out classes and certs to finish a BS focused on Net Ops and Security (WGU has a decent program going).

My new thing now is finishing what I've started. Hence completing my degree program, and I will be honoring the 2-year commitment I signed with current company. I have been amazingly focused and productive (amazing to me anyway) But I'm also looking at trying to line things up for June 2020 when I am free to explore opportunities.

Which leads me to my question for you's guys..

What certs or knowledge domains do you see being useful going forward? I've still got my CCNP and CCNA-Security (renewed this year), Sec+, CASP, SSCP and A+. I will also have CCDA, ITIL Foundations and Project+ to add to the list when I finish my degree program. I've got a solid background in Network Administration up to the RNOC level, deployment experience from several projects I've been on and I'm now dabbling in Systems and IA. I want to parlay all of this into an engineering role and move myself up the ladder, probably in the defense contracting world again, although it has been suggested to me that I should look into the Finance industry.

At the rate I'm going my degree will be done May 2019. That leaves me an entire year in this job with nothing but time to focus and capitalize on my momentum. Data Center? SP? Security? Collaboration? I wouldn't mind a full refresh of my Route/Switch knowledge and then getting into a new CCNP track.

[deanwebb]

My answer to this question was to go vendor for a product I really enjoyed working with. Now I get it working over and over and over again. If you're working with technologies that make you glad when the projects are done, then you're not ready to pick a vendor to run with. Maybe.

Do you want to keep doing different stuff?

Do you want to get into management and help direct other engineers?

Do you want to get into an architect role? That one kinda splits the difference between management and engineering. Ask an engineer how to set up a switch, he'll give you a step-by-step. Ask the architect, and he'll refer you to the engineer for the step-by-step after reminding you about the processes that have to be followed to provision a new switch.

[Dieselboy]

Depends on age IMO. If youre a young person getting into networking then I'd say get the vendor certs and experience and heavily tie in Linux in there as well as things like Ansible and automation. You sound a bit more seasoned to me so I'd honestly recommend project management, management and leadership.

[Otanx]

It sounds like you get bored easy. So look at VARs or Vendors. That way you get to work on different customer networks, and should keep you interested. If you go that route certifications are king. VARs get benefits from vendors for having certified people so there is always a push to get another cert so the company can become a super double platinum partner. Also project management is liked in this space as everything you do is a project.

If that does not sound interesting then automation is the new hotness. Learn Ansible, Python, etc. Then find companies that are beginning to work with those tools. This gives you the opportunity to build out a network, and learn a lot.

Of course in 2 years when your current contract is done this could all have changed.

-Otanx

[config t]

I appreciate the feedback. It gave me a lot to think about, like, "what does an architect actually do!?"

It sounds like you get bored easy. So look at VARs or Vendors. That way you get to work on different customer networks, and should keep you interested.

I think you are on to something there. Now that I think about it, every major contract I've worked with had a vendor rep around and that vendor rep was part of a federal support team. I can still leverage my clearance and DoD experience that way.

Other than that I think some flavor of management or architecture would be great. It would take some doing and probably having to slide into a mid-level role first, but the payoff would be worth it. I've seen some jobs posted already with contractors in Japan and Philippines that would be quite alright and I'm already on the path to having the credentials they are looking for.

It feels good to be back in action.

[deanwebb]

^ We have rules about not ripping our shirts off at client sites, hope that's a photo of you at home...

[Otanx]

Probably a photo from the Christmas party. I hear VAR Christmas parties are wild.

-Otanx

[deanwebb]

Probably a photo from the Christmas party. I hear VAR Christmas parties are wild.

-Otanx

Always a party in the profit center!

[wintermute000]

Nobody ever got fired for knowing linux. RHCA/RHCE esp if you do systems stuff is a no-brainer IMO, and/or VMware. Ties in nicely with Ansible/python.

AWS/Azure is the new hotness.

Nobody can ever get enough wireless engineers.... ditto with firewalls. But in both cases a lot of it is heavily vendor specific (Cisco or Aruba WLAN? Palo Alto or Fortinet FWs? etc.)

What's IA?

Problem is spreading yourself too thin, what technical area are you actually interested in an/or is in high demand amongst your customer / military? Also all the new networking stuff is heavily product/vendor siloed - knowing SD-Access or knowing Viptela is a lot like knowing an app, won't help you that much with vendor XYZ's campus fabric or SD-WAN product for example. Then again being military the obvious path is just throwing yourself at the vendors that are entrenched.


+1 to Otanx, I can't ever go back to in-house, its VAR/consultancy or vendor-land. VARs love defence clearances, but that means working for one of the big boys who will get a seat at the table, and then getting sucked into the soul destroying large govt gigs with all the associated bureaucracy and politics.

[config t]

IA = Information Assurance. For gov'ment that can mean a lot of things. In my case it's vulnerability management (on a small scale), policy enforcement and some secret squirrel stuff.

My rough plan as it stands is to finish my current pipeline and refresh my core route/switch skills. Since I already have a CCNP and will be doing the CCDA as part of my degree program, I'm going to just do the one test I need for CCDP while I'm at it. That will be more than enough to get me into a mid to senior level networking role with a big contractor.

After that I want to look at something that piggybacks off of what I've done and adds value/survivability. Maybe VM/Data Center. I really need to do some research on all the new hotness'

VARs love defence clearances, but that means working for one of the big boys who will get a seat at the table, and then getting sucked into the soul destroying large govt gigs with all the associated bureaucracy and politics.

You ain't lyin' about the bureaucracy and politics. I rode that three-legged poney a few times before as a contractor. It can become nightmare-ish.