Presentation for interview

[heath]

This is kind of like a homework assignment, so I'm posting it here.  I have 3 rounds of interviews scheduled for a Network Engineer position with an ISP.  They've told me that the 3rd interview will be a presentation that I have to give on a hypothetical situation.  That situation is that a university system is transitioning from autonomous campus IT to consolidated IT under the flagship campus.  I am to design a new network for the system providing IP internet services, disaster recovery / business continuity.  I can assume unlimited funding and all technologies are available with no restrictions.

Off the top of my head, I'm thinking a dedicated fiber ring connecting all the campuses.  Each campus with a dedicated connection to the internet with backup connection through adjacent campuses on the ring.  Remote OOB management with something like OpenGear that has a cellular connection. 

What about other equipment?  My Cisco knowledge is limited to Catalyst 6k, 3k, and 2k switches, some old low-end Nexus gear and a couple ISRs used mainly for VMware hosts at branch offices.  My routing experience limited to OSPF, static routes, and a tiny tiny bit of BGP.  I've attended some workshops on SD-WAN and DNA Center, but haven't been able to implement any of that yet.  What about other vendors?  What are some directions you would point me in to do research?  What I manage now is kind of cookie-cutter - repeat at building B what worked at building A.  What should I look at to broaden my scope?

Is this position potentially over my head and beyond my current skill set?  You bet it is.  But I know most of the team, they provide a ton of training opportunities, and I think my experience shows that I can learn what I need to.  I've heard that success is biting off more than you can chew and chewing it anyway.  I'm very aware this would be a pretty big bite for me, but I'm looking forward to chewing it.

[deanwebb]

Unlimited budget and any technologies = crazy go nuts... and in an educational customer? Wow, that is major-league unheard of. Next they'll be talking about legal firms actually spending money on in-house IT staff.

OK, serious, now...

DR and IP are the keys here. And, yes, SD-WAN needs to come into the play, as would a multicloud broker solution. That's part of their test: are you thinking end-to-end in terms of the network, or are you focused on granularities?

Next is customer vertical awareness. University system: in Texas, that covers huge distances, so no fiber ring for one and all. In 1995, you'd talk about frame-relay. In 2005, you'd talk about MPLS networks. Now it's SD-WAN and VPN connections.

Students and guests: Gotta have a big wireless play, covering multiple campuses. Straight wireless or go with a cloud-managed solution? Think about the IT staff at the customer: what's easiest for them to maintain, lean that direction.

The medical schools and associated hospitals: university systems tend to also have a medical environment, which may or may not be integrated in overall university IT. Go for it here and assume that it is so you can flex your design with a medical environment alongside an educational environment. Medical introduces concepts of microsegmentation. Patient wireless could be the same as student/guest wireless, leverage that. But healthcare means much more attention to details on meeting tighter SLAs for DR and continuity. Again, ease of management is a big plus.

I should ask for clarity on "ISP" - is that Internet Service Provider or Integrated Services Provider? If you're just doing the Internet connections, then talk about redundant circuits and meshes and things like that. If you're *integrated*, then you'll also need a piece that speaks to network security. That means perimeter, NAC, posture checks, threat detection, lots of things that could go much wider in scope than what you have time to prep/present on, so keeping it general would be enough to let them know that you've got that in mind, but not so much that you get away from the primary focus on DR, continuity, and IP Internet services.

Are there more specifics on what the 3rd interview will cover?

[heath]

Well, I kind of bombed the presentation.  I thought so anyway.  I focused on SDN.  SD-Access, SD-WAN, geographically separated datacenters using VXLAN, etc.  Between my full time job and getting sick with Covid, I didn't have as much time to research, prepare, and practice as much as I would have liked.  Despite my horrible presentation, I was still offered the position.  And I accepted.  Better pay for sure, the promise of much less stress but we'll see, and I can work remotely. 

[icecream-guy]

Well, I kind of bombed the presentation.  I thought so anyway.  I focused on SDN.  SD-Access, SD-WAN, geographically separated datacenters using VXLAN, etc.  Between my full time job and getting sick with Covid, I didn't have as much time to research, prepare, and practice as much as I would have liked.  Despite my horrible presentation, I was still offered the position.  And I accepted.  Better pay for sure, the promise of much less stress but we'll see, and I can work remotely.

was it the presentation itself? or the solution your presented, that bombed,   even if the material was not there, if you presented it well, ,material may not have mattered,  maybe they were checking your presentation skills, not the subject matter as much,

[deanwebb]

Yeah, they wanted the sizzle, not the steak.

[heath]

So what I've learned in recent conversations is that they had already decided to make an offer after the first two rounds of interviews.  The only thing that would have jeopardized that would have been if I just didn't do the presentation at all. 

Overall I'm pretty happy with the move.  Stress level is way down.  I'm learning a lot of new things instead of just always plugging holes in the leaking dam.  Although I'm working "from home" I'm also traveling a lot which keeps things interesting.  And things at my old place of employment continue to deteriorate. 

[deanwebb]

Awesome! Glad it's a fresh move for you!

[Otanx]

Congratulations. Glad it is working out.

-Otanx