I've been a network engineer for almost 10 years, I would absolutely tell my kids to get into networking, even now. Like all things in tech, they change, network guys have to learn how to program for automation and zero touch provisioning. SDWAN and SASE and big up and comers as well. I love being a network engineer its a highly respected position, people come to us when things break, even if they aren't ours, because they know we'll point them in the right direction.
Amen it just went from a very specific to more broad. You can get experience with lots of different technologies and move to different fields from net engineer experience.
I was a network engineer for a couple years and the reason why I got out was because the pay just was not good enough. I was making close to six figures, but the highest you can go is pretty much network architect at $200,000. Too much work and too many certifications when you can just post on tik tok and make more than that going viral. Juice just is not worth the squeeze.
I’m a network specialist. I pretty much do engineer work what I see is you need more than just networking skills. Cloud skills & security with networking is the sweet spot in my opinion with great troubleshooting skills.
Punish companies that outsource. Its amazing to me how patriotism is only when the gov wants to wage a war but never when it comes to American jobs and livelihoods. Amazing
I work for an MSP and what I have seen is that most organizations keep their senior Network Engineers who also tend to double as the Security Engineer and maybe a jr admin as well as a backup and then layoff their entire Networking department and replace them with managed services.
2 Years of networking engineer experience after a background in nursing and I like it so far. It's far easier. I also see clear as day how important this job is just like nursing for society. Job security and demand is all I care about. Covid gave me the time to switch. I don't think people have the time to pause their current life for a 'what if' like we did in 2020-2022. If you want to make it exciting. Stop the industry gatekeeping and laundry list of requirements, education, etc. Pay people what they need to *thrive* in life and not simply _exist_ . That's it.
I respect the hell out of you network engineers. I’m a cybersecurity guy and its true. You like looking at logs all day? On call? Being the “pain in the ass” of the company? Idk. It’s all relative to me. Even the sexy hackers have days where it’s not as sexy as you’re told on RUclips by influencers. Keep up the good work gents. Is the IT industry what it was? No, definitely not. Still, networking is a crucial skill set to understand.
I'm not an Network Egnineer but have worked in IT for some years ( with networks & sys admin etc. etc.) The podcast is very informative, about network engineering profession, the IT industry, and the constant changes that never seems to slow down. I realized years back the IT field is not a long term profession, as most people that work in IT, will never be able to grow old in the field, to the point of reitirement. ( Sure there is a small percentage of the overall amount of IT folks, that are able to retire after a long career, but from the way I see it, the "IT machine" will chew up, and spit out may others, long before they even reach a 10-15 year mark in the IT career field.) The pace of change also causes many, to eventually be let go, because they dont keep up with dedicating enough time to the constant learning demands/IT changes. One always has to stay IT Marketable, as company layoffs come many times, not because you were bad at your job, but because the company may not have had a good product/service, or a good financial quater. Information tech is a high overhead career, you have to dedicate a lot of personal time, to constant learning. Technology overall, is to do MORE with less And that always means with less people. (AI) Artificial Intelligence will have long lasting effects of the industry overall, in the coming years. I would tell kids today, Yes work in the technology field, but always have a backup plan for your career. As everyone wants to be able to retire, and have enough money to retire to live comfortably, when they reach that age.
I'm a IT guy that was put here by default (no one else would do it). The interest in any computer related field must be way heavier in some regions of the country than others.At one time I was resurrecting older desktops machine for people that really couldn't afford a computer, I DON'T do this anymore. I mean a lot of queries of "do you have a computer?". Gets the comeback, "Oh I only use my cell phone"! I've some older friends that used to be consumer grade computer experts. Now they rely on their cell phone for all communication activities. The wife of one couple told "we just did take our computer as donation to the thrift store". My own relatives just don't even bring up any computing activities as dinner talk. Yes you three are talking "enterprise work" and I'm bringing in the domestic consumer perspective. Most all of us started out messing around in our bedrooms with some old throw away desktop computer. There just doesn't seem to be that kind of interest anymore in my region of the world so no new blood in the work pool.
I’ve been a network engineer since 2008. I love it. I’ve heard the ‘Network Engineer career field is dying’ spiel for the last ten years. Yet, companies are still looking for us and paying great salaries for what we do. As long as offices exist and as long as the internet exists, they will be a need for network engineers. As for Azure or AWS or any other cloud service, I’m now running into the problems that non-network engineers create for them selves with out consulting a good Network Engineer. They spin up vNets in Azure and don’t understand the basics of IP addressing,then they can’t figure out why their VM’s can’t communicate spoke to spoke and from Azure to on-prem. Network Engineers skills are vital even in the cloud.
I don't do network engineering (although my wife does). But I think what you guys are discussing applies to a lot of tech roles right now (e.g. "X is a Dying Career Field". And that's because what's plaguing the networking career field is plaguing many others as well -- outsourcing, AI, etc. The tech field in general right now is kind of a bloodbath, it's so cutthroat and so many people are getting let go (I've luckily avoided it so far, but I know the writing is on the wall and my number will get called eventually). I don't know that many other industries are doing much better, but I graduated from college about 10 years go / have only been in a career setting that amount of time, but even in that time I've noticed things go downhill fairly drastically. It's sad and very unfortunate. There is a severe leadership shortage where we've had "leaders" that didn't look out for their people and just made the easy, short-term decisions to help the bottom line, and there's been a lot of long-term suffering and needless hardship that's been created as a result of many of those decisions.
It is perhaps equivalent to "digital plumbing" - we are never going to not need plumbers. We are always going to need people that can configure networks to connect devices. It's just not the heady days of when getting a CCIE was a ticket to your first Ferrari.
Thanks for the videos and conversation. I am taking an IT course right now, making a career change. I am still in my mid 20s. After initial research, Network Engineer/Net Admin/Sysadmin are my top choices. After creating a few diagrams and projects on Packet Tracer and learning OSI layers and also dipping into some surface level CCNA material, I can confidently say that I absolutely am pursuing the Network Engineer path. It just seems like a good fit and I like the concepts/materials.
Is network engineering a dying career field? Good question. I think it is evolving. In recent years I have observed a big push for network automation and software defined networking. I'm currently working on a project where I'm learning how to automate the deployment and configuration of network devices in a cloud environment. It's more challenging than learning cli commands, but interesting also. I do see network engineers having to expand their skillset to include other technologies such as virtualization, operating systems and applications, and scripting/coding. My personal opinion is there will always be network engineering opportunities, but probably in reduced numbers. And network engineering is just one of many skills you will need to have a viable IT career.
Stick with the core networking, ignore the hype. When the network is functioning well you have some time to learn new skills to augment your networking skills, notably computer security. Consider what is absolutely vital and be the person who fulfills that role. Continued learning is a must, but don't overdo it, family life is important too.
14:07 totatlly agreed, as new person in the field with just a CCNA I see that me and many people at my level, we are not allowed to touch equipment or made any configurations changes.
If so few people want to become network engineers, then one would assume that those jobs would be in high demand because there would not be enough people to fill those jobs. But recent stats show that network engineers barley rank in the top 20 jobs for which companies are looking. Couple that with the salary of a cloud engineer that is 20 to 30 thousand dollars more and of course techs won’t care that much about it. So why do companies not care much about this role? Are there already too many network engineers ? Why is the salary that much lower ?
I’m doing a NE internship for a company that does AV systems and security systems for other businesses . We do everything from designing and configuring to installing (although the engineers don’t install only troubleshoot) From what we see , there’s a lot of need but it’s in people who posses NE engineers but also have some other skills to combine . POE is only growing in adaption , everything has an IP and a server
Good morning, all! New subscriber, here. I wanted to say thanks for uploading this video. I'm moving from military/HR for a couple decades to the IT field. While I'm in school, I'm trying to get as much of a familiarization of the field as possible. I know nothing is a picture-perfect 100% representation, but videos like yours help me manage my expectations. Again, thanks and take care, all.
From my experience, the skill level for network engineering is HIGH. High high. But a lot of environments don't call for thise high skillsets very often. Anyone can throw some merakis into a network, and that will get a lot of businesses 80% of the way there. Once you get out of SMB, the complexity of the environment can scale exponentially *but* outaide of large new deployments/upgrades (3-5 years give or take) the skill level needed to maintain the environment is relatively low. Its fairly irregular that the average company is setting up new DC-DC failover out to their 50 remote sites, or is deploying a new underlay/overlay fabric or pushing config changes to 1000 AP's. Since the need is irregular, that heavy lift and shift need gets filled by consultants, and unfortunately the new engineer that took an internal role isn't getting the exposure that would enable them to reach that high skill ceiling. It's a feedback loop that minimizes the contributions of internal staff, which minimizes the amount of budgeting that internal network headcount gets drawn from. Which pushes businesses to NAAS and consultants. So on and so forth.
Hey guys enjoyed the Podcast as a hopeful future Network Engineer. From my take as someone who wants to enter the field, where is all the Jr positions!? The ratio of jobs looking for Sr Network Engineer vs a Jr position is staggering. As someone who worked helpdesk for 2 years, this is not a position to prep you for Network Engineering. I'm gonna get my CCNA this year but I've been keeping an eye out for Jr Network Engineer/Admin positions/internships but they are scarce. Tech has a bad market this year but still you can see the demand for Full time Network Engineers but I don't think CCNA is a qualifier for that position.
Wow, I really enjoyed this episode each of you were very open about how you feel about the current state of Network engineering the good the bad the ugly, but each of you still love what you are doing. I'm late coming to the field currently studying for my CCNA. i know I have a long road ahead of me, but this podcast has inspire me and I know I'm on the right path. Thanks
I feel it's 50/50. Yes, it's slowing down, but now SDWAN and SASE are the big new thing. Also cloud engineers or DevOps are in demand now. However I'm a security architect and I need your help in doing my job. So pls don't leave the field of network engineering. You have my full support.
Stumble across this video and love the information. Been in help desk for about 2 1/2 uears now and I'm loooking to get into network. Cool to see the contrast reflection of society in the IT field Simlar to online "influencer"(like youtuber or now streamers). Everyone wants to do the cool, hot and sexy things.(Similar to someone owning that Lamborghini and has that 6 figure job) When in reality most thing in life is kinda boring and repetitive and takes times to do those fun thing. Cool video and looking forward to more videos.
Few people want to put in the amount of time it takes to be a “good” engineer, the attention span is not the same and false promise more $ even for entry level candidates in other sectors
My local community college just added this degree a year ago and i have been attending. Now people are saying its already an out of date field to get into. 🤦♂️
I've been trying to get into the field for a while with an Associates degree, but I keep getting the experience excuse even though I'm willing to do what it takes. Hiring managers are rather frustrating to say the least.
My recommendation, learn as much as you can right now, but the last 2 years in the IT profession there has been a lot of layoffs.....I am old enough to have seen, this is a common cycle in the industry, and economy overall, so right at this moment is not a good time to try to get into the field, you would be better off spending the search time, with learning time, and get experience wherever you can.
we're always hiring though Network Engineer title only seems fading.. better add and polish those network Security Skills coz these HR people lump the same Role into one. either network security or network engineer its the same workload. Routing, Switching, SDWANs, Firewalls, Load balancers, Wireless, VOIP, Azure and AWS and automations and i am appauled by these new Cloud roles that has no solid understanding of Infrastructure..😅 im too old to baby sit the new people but we really need a helping hand 😂 coz it seems that the center of all hese new roles are the Network Engineers atleast in our MSP company. I LOVE NETWORKS BY HEART as we always say "SALUTE! TO OUR FELLOW UNSUNG HEROES OF INTERNET"
Mobile devices are moving toward built-in cellular and applications are moving toward saas with networking built into the application. Data center protocols will also be different, no longer using tcp/ip. But this will take years, but this is the trend
Network engineer is like call centre work these days. Its either offshored or automated. More to come as tech gets better and AI. ZTP and ipsec makes a lot of router and switching obsolete, this can more or less be done at the optical layer with some new cards to do provisioning. Cost saving by removing layer2 and L3 is eromous, just L1 and L4 and above
Hardware network engineering on the soft side, SDN (Software Defined Networking) is where it's at - on-prem level or cloud coupled with Software Defined Networking Security. I think these guys are from the old guard who hasn't kept up with the times.
19:07 "so what can we do to make network engineering more exciting to ppl so they actually wanna do it" Pay more, our salaries are not on the same scale of cyber, cloud or software engineers. I found that our salaries are always the lowest of the tech industry.
All cloud vendors have datacenters around regions and geographies, guess which professionals are working on maintaining connections and configurations of those datacenters? cloud is not something that just magically exist in the sky 😅.
I wouldnt say its dying but everything is blended now its about what is your base. are you a programmer, netowork guy. server guy which requires knowin all the rest. Were sys admins with advanced networking.
Ok so this was my first comment 'Just when I thought I could switch my domain to network engineering' i was wrong. Am currently a dev I always loved networking just the hardware combined with software is wat I love more about networking. I haven't actually worked on it but I always had a huge interest and passion towards working in it. Now am trying to switch my career to networking but everyone said nah it's gonna go, away it's a big '?', early stage hell blah blah blah. I was scared and am actually scared of this switch whether I should do it or not. Am double minded all these cloud ai is scaring me what should I choose. I understand only the best would last here but ahhh am just scared will it make it to the top of the mountain(*am a beginner am saying all these from all the podcasts RUclips content and stuff , so correct me if am wrong).Can somebody help me with my decision 😖. After seeing you guys I do get more motivated towards choosing networking but this 'What if' is....
If you understand the C/C++ programming languages or other low-level languages used in networking hardware and protocols, you may be able to pivot to a development role that allows you to make software for networking equipment. I would bet that Cisco, Juniper, Palo Alto, and other networking companies would be looking for folks who can do that -- although I do not know the extent to which this is true.
The problem I see to begin with is that many Network Technicians call themselves Network Engineering and see their jobs being threatened by automation, So I think the premise is wrong. No offense to anyone, but repetitive task intensive jobs will ALWAYS be replaced by new technologies. There is nothing repetitive about the engineering part of networking.
My thought, When company networks are built, its the hardest part, AI can take over the rest of the way. Outages, AI will be able to automatically switchover the load OR apply the fix to the issue, that just popped up with the network outage.
I think it's a RIP. The AI already knows most of this stuff, so there's not really much need in getting certified. System admins will inherit most of the network engineers roll though AI and large corporations will outsource. A local network engineer will be replaced by a cellphone with a crossover cable. I give it 5-10 years and Network Engineering is completely gone as an independent roll. Maybe sooner, we never really know what big tech is into.
yes dying since it is nit an easy field to enter ,no labs while starting out and the high level engineers never share knowledge, i had spend a lot of money to learn stuff....not a great career better to do software engineering ...the oncall will take a toll on your health. there is my 2 rupees
I've been a network engineer for almost 10 years, I would absolutely tell my kids to get into networking, even now. Like all things in tech, they change, network guys have to learn how to program for automation and zero touch provisioning. SDWAN and SASE and big up and comers as well. I love being a network engineer its a highly respected position, people come to us when things break, even if they aren't ours, because they know we'll point them in the right direction.
Amen it just went from a very specific to more broad. You can get experience with lots of different technologies and move to different fields from net engineer experience.
I was a network engineer for a couple years and the reason why I got out was because the pay just was not good enough. I was making close to six figures, but the highest you can go is pretty much network architect at $200,000. Too much work and too many certifications when you can just post on tik tok and make more than that going viral. Juice just is not worth the squeeze.
I’m a network specialist. I pretty much do engineer work what I see is you need more than just networking skills. Cloud skills & security with networking is the sweet spot in my opinion with great troubleshooting skills.
Punish companies that outsource. Its amazing to me how patriotism is only when the gov wants to wage a war but never when it comes to American jobs and livelihoods. Amazing
I work for an MSP and what I have seen is that most organizations keep their senior Network Engineers who also tend to double as the Security Engineer and maybe a jr admin as well as a backup and then layoff their entire Networking department and replace them with managed services.
I'm a network admin with 5 yrs. Lost my position to out sourcing. No one around here is hiring for network people...
I made like a "Research study" and I type different keywords of networking in linkedin and is to low vs other IT jobs
Move to the cloud
It's far from dying. It's just being outsourced.
Dying for us
2 Years of networking engineer experience after a background in nursing and I like it so far. It's far easier. I also see clear as day how important this job is just like nursing for society. Job security and demand is all I care about.
Covid gave me the time to switch. I don't think people have the time to pause their current life for a 'what if' like we did in 2020-2022.
If you want to make it exciting. Stop the industry gatekeeping and laundry list of requirements, education, etc. Pay people what they need to *thrive* in life and not simply _exist_ . That's it.
What certifications did you get to be engineer?
I respect the hell out of you network engineers. I’m a cybersecurity guy and its true. You like looking at logs all day? On call? Being the “pain in the ass” of the company? Idk. It’s all relative to me. Even the sexy hackers have days where it’s not as sexy as you’re told on RUclips by influencers. Keep up the good work gents. Is the IT industry what it was? No, definitely not. Still, networking is a crucial skill set to understand.
I'm not an Network Egnineer but have worked in IT for some years ( with networks & sys admin etc. etc.)
The podcast is very informative, about network engineering profession, the IT industry, and the constant changes that never seems to slow down.
I realized years back the IT field is not a long term profession, as most people that work in IT, will never be able to grow old in the field, to the point of reitirement. ( Sure there is a small percentage of the overall amount of IT folks, that are able to retire after a long career, but from the way I see it, the "IT machine" will chew up, and spit out may others, long before they even reach a 10-15 year mark in the IT career field.)
The pace of change also causes many, to eventually be let go, because they dont keep up with dedicating enough time to the constant learning demands/IT changes.
One always has to stay IT Marketable, as company layoffs come many times, not because you were bad at your job, but because the company may not have had a good product/service, or a good financial quater.
Information tech is a high overhead career, you have to dedicate a lot of personal time, to constant learning.
Technology overall, is to do MORE with less
And that always means with less people.
(AI) Artificial Intelligence will have long lasting effects of the industry overall, in the coming years.
I would tell kids today, Yes work in the technology field, but always have a backup plan for your career.
As everyone wants to be able to retire, and have enough money to retire to live comfortably, when they reach that age.
I'm a IT guy that was put here by default (no one else would do it). The interest in any computer related field must be way heavier in some regions of the country than others.At one time I was resurrecting older desktops machine for people that really couldn't afford a computer, I DON'T do this anymore. I mean a lot of queries of "do you have a computer?". Gets the comeback, "Oh I only use my cell phone"! I've some older friends that used to be consumer grade computer experts. Now they rely on their cell phone for all communication activities. The wife of one couple told "we just did take our computer as donation to the thrift store". My own relatives just don't even bring up any computing activities as dinner talk. Yes you three are talking "enterprise work" and I'm bringing in the domestic consumer perspective. Most all of us started out messing around in our bedrooms with some old throw away desktop computer. There just doesn't seem to be that kind of interest anymore in my region of the world so no new blood in the work pool.
I’ve been a network engineer since 2008. I love it. I’ve heard the ‘Network Engineer career field is dying’ spiel for the last ten years. Yet, companies are still looking for us and paying great salaries for what we do. As long as offices exist and as long as the internet exists, they will be a need for network engineers. As for Azure or AWS or any other cloud service, I’m now running into the problems that non-network engineers create for them selves with out consulting a good Network Engineer. They spin up vNets in Azure and don’t understand the basics of IP addressing,then they can’t figure out why their VM’s can’t communicate spoke to spoke and from Azure to on-prem. Network Engineers skills are vital even in the cloud.
I don't do network engineering (although my wife does). But I think what you guys are discussing applies to a lot of tech roles right now (e.g. "X is a Dying Career Field". And that's because what's plaguing the networking career field is plaguing many others as well -- outsourcing, AI, etc. The tech field in general right now is kind of a bloodbath, it's so cutthroat and so many people are getting let go (I've luckily avoided it so far, but I know the writing is on the wall and my number will get called eventually). I don't know that many other industries are doing much better, but I graduated from college about 10 years go / have only been in a career setting that amount of time, but even in that time I've noticed things go downhill fairly drastically. It's sad and very unfortunate. There is a severe leadership shortage where we've had "leaders" that didn't look out for their people and just made the easy, short-term decisions to help the bottom line, and there's been a lot of long-term suffering and needless hardship that's been created as a result of many of those decisions.
It is perhaps equivalent to "digital plumbing" - we are never going to not need plumbers. We are always going to need people that can configure networks to connect devices. It's just not the heady days of when getting a CCIE was a ticket to your first Ferrari.
Thanks for the videos and conversation. I am taking an IT course right now, making a career change. I am still in my mid 20s. After initial research, Network Engineer/Net Admin/Sysadmin are my top choices. After creating a few diagrams and projects on Packet Tracer and learning OSI layers and also dipping into some surface level CCNA material, I can confidently say that I absolutely am pursuing the Network Engineer path. It just seems like a good fit and I like the concepts/materials.
Is network engineering a dying career field? Good question. I think it is evolving. In recent years I have observed a big push for network automation and software defined networking. I'm currently working on a project where I'm learning how to automate the deployment and configuration of network devices in a cloud environment. It's more challenging than learning cli commands, but interesting also. I do see network engineers having to expand their skillset to include other technologies such as virtualization, operating systems and applications, and scripting/coding. My personal opinion is there will always be network engineering opportunities, but probably in reduced numbers. And network engineering is just one of many skills you will need to have a viable IT career.
This made me a little sad, but also grateful to know it. Thanks guys
1st time seeing your channel, you guys had the realest talk I've seen from other I.T channels, no bluff and just told it how it is.
Stick with the core networking, ignore the hype. When the network is functioning well you have some time to learn new skills to augment your networking skills, notably computer security. Consider what is absolutely vital and be the person who fulfills that role. Continued learning is a must, but don't overdo it, family life is important too.
14:07 totatlly agreed, as new person in the field with just a CCNA I see that me and many people at my level, we are not allowed to touch equipment or made any configurations changes.
Two words: Troubleshooting skills.
In the end it’s the Network Engineer who have those.
If so few people want to become network engineers, then one would assume that those jobs would be in high demand because there would not be enough people to fill those jobs. But recent stats show that network engineers barley rank in the top 20 jobs for which companies are looking. Couple that with the salary of a cloud engineer that is 20 to 30 thousand dollars more and of course techs won’t care that much about it. So why do companies not care much about this role? Are there already too many network engineers ? Why is the salary that much lower ?
I’m doing a NE internship for a company that does AV systems and security systems for other businesses . We do everything from designing and configuring to installing (although the engineers don’t install only troubleshoot)
From what we see , there’s a lot of need but it’s in people who posses NE engineers but also have some other skills to combine . POE is only growing in adaption , everything has an IP and a server
Also I read that within the 25% of the engineers in networking are retiring soon .
I think network engineering is going to slowly morph into system admin tasks. Today, if you are a VMware system admin, you are doing both tasks.
Good morning, all! New subscriber, here. I wanted to say thanks for uploading this video.
I'm moving from military/HR for a couple decades to the IT field. While I'm in school, I'm trying to get as much of a familiarization of the field as possible. I know nothing is a picture-perfect 100% representation, but videos like yours help me manage my expectations.
Again, thanks and take care, all.
From my experience, the skill level for network engineering is HIGH. High high. But a lot of environments don't call for thise high skillsets very often.
Anyone can throw some merakis into a network, and that will get a lot of businesses 80% of the way there. Once you get out of SMB, the complexity of the environment can scale exponentially *but* outaide of large new deployments/upgrades (3-5 years give or take) the skill level needed to maintain the environment is relatively low. Its fairly irregular that the average company is setting up new DC-DC failover out to their 50 remote sites, or is deploying a new underlay/overlay fabric or pushing config changes to 1000 AP's.
Since the need is irregular, that heavy lift and shift need gets filled by consultants, and unfortunately the new engineer that took an internal role isn't getting the exposure that would enable them to reach that high skill ceiling.
It's a feedback loop that minimizes the contributions of internal staff, which minimizes the amount of budgeting that internal network headcount gets drawn from. Which pushes businesses to NAAS and consultants. So on and so forth.
Hey guys enjoyed the Podcast as a hopeful future Network Engineer. From my take as someone who wants to enter the field, where is all the Jr positions!? The ratio of jobs looking for Sr Network Engineer vs a Jr position is staggering. As someone who worked helpdesk for 2 years, this is not a position to prep you for Network Engineering. I'm gonna get my CCNA this year but I've been keeping an eye out for Jr Network Engineer/Admin positions/internships but they are scarce. Tech has a bad market this year but still you can see the demand for Full time Network Engineers but I don't think CCNA is a qualifier for that position.
Wow, I really enjoyed this episode each of you were very open about how you feel about the current state of Network engineering the good the bad the ugly, but each of you still love what you are doing. I'm late coming to the field currently studying for my CCNA. i know I have a long road ahead of me, but this podcast has inspire me and I know I'm on the right path. Thanks
I feel it's 50/50. Yes, it's slowing down, but now SDWAN and SASE are the big new thing. Also cloud engineers or DevOps are in demand now. However I'm a security architect and I need your help in doing my job. So pls don't leave the field of network engineering. You have my full support.
Stumble across this video and love the information.
Been in help desk for about 2 1/2 uears now and I'm loooking to get into network.
Cool to see the contrast reflection of society in the IT field
Simlar to online "influencer"(like youtuber or now streamers).
Everyone wants to do the cool, hot and sexy things.(Similar to someone owning that Lamborghini and has that 6 figure job)
When in reality most thing in life is kinda boring and repetitive and takes times to do those fun thing.
Cool video and looking forward to more videos.
Few people want to put in the amount of time it takes to be a “good” engineer, the attention span is not the same and false promise more $ even for entry level candidates in other sectors
10:29 OK, ok, this guy redeemed himself here. He's 100% correct.
My local community college just added this degree a year ago and i have been attending. Now people are saying its already an out of date field to get into. 🤦♂️
People pretend it’s a great field to get into as if it’s 1996 still.
Get into devops and take cs
I've been trying to get into the field for a while with an Associates degree, but I keep getting the experience excuse even though I'm willing to do what it takes. Hiring managers are rather frustrating to say the least.
My recommendation, learn as much as you can right now, but the last 2 years in the IT profession there has been a lot of layoffs.....I am old enough to have seen, this is a common cycle in the industry, and economy overall, so right at this moment is not a good time to try to get into the field, you would be better off spending the search time, with learning time, and get experience wherever you can.
we're always hiring though Network Engineer title only seems fading.. better add and polish those network Security Skills coz these HR people lump the same Role into one. either network security or network engineer its the same workload. Routing, Switching, SDWANs, Firewalls, Load balancers, Wireless, VOIP, Azure and AWS and automations and i am appauled by these new Cloud roles that has no solid understanding of Infrastructure..😅 im too old to baby sit the new people but we really need a helping hand 😂 coz it seems that the center of all hese new roles are the Network Engineers atleast in our MSP company. I LOVE NETWORKS BY HEART as we always say "SALUTE! TO OUR FELLOW UNSUNG HEROES OF INTERNET"
Mobile devices are moving toward built-in cellular and applications are moving toward saas with networking built into the application. Data center protocols will also be different, no longer using tcp/ip. But this will take years, but this is the trend
What will they use instead of tcpip?
Absolutely love these conversations. Great panelists!
Anything digital can be automated and AI can do it more and more
they hire me more as a 1099 to work with big companies but when I apply w2 they don't hire me its weird
Network engineer is like call centre work these days. Its either offshored or automated. More to come as tech gets better and AI. ZTP and ipsec makes a lot of router and switching obsolete, this can more or less be done at the optical layer with some new cards to do provisioning. Cost saving by removing layer2 and L3 is eromous, just L1 and L4 and above
Also data center and service provider makes them more needed than ever imo just higher pay and concentrated
If network did't work , nothing else works!
Nice discussion and insights gentleman. Nice to see Andy having a change of heart.😊
Hardware network engineering on the soft side, SDN (Software Defined Networking) is where it's at - on-prem level or cloud coupled with Software Defined Networking Security. I think these guys are from the old guard who hasn't kept up with the times.
19:07 "so what can we do to make network engineering more exciting to ppl so they actually wanna do it" Pay more, our salaries are not on the same scale of cyber, cloud or software engineers. I found that our salaries are always the lowest of the tech industry.
Thats alright we need ditch diggeers . And welders
All cloud vendors have datacenters around regions and geographies, guess which professionals are working on maintaining connections and configurations of those datacenters? cloud is not something that just magically exist in the sky 😅.
great talk!
I wouldnt say its dying but everything is blended now its about what is your base. are you a programmer, netowork guy. server guy which requires knowin all the rest. Were sys admins with advanced networking.
3:51 the guy that hasn't been in networking for 12 years disagrees with the other two who are actually in networking for the last 10 years 😂
can just google whatever problem occurs; most can't
Ok so this was my first comment 'Just when I thought I could switch my domain to network engineering' i was wrong. Am currently a dev I always loved networking just the hardware combined with software is wat I love more about networking. I haven't actually worked on it but I always had a huge interest and passion towards working in it. Now am trying to switch my career to networking but everyone said nah it's gonna go, away it's a big '?', early stage hell blah blah blah. I was scared and am actually scared of this switch whether I should do it or not. Am double minded all these cloud ai is scaring me what should I choose. I understand only the best would last here but ahhh am just scared will it make it to the top of the mountain(*am a beginner am saying all these from all the podcasts RUclips content and stuff , so correct me if am wrong).Can somebody help me with my decision 😖. After seeing you guys I do get more motivated towards choosing networking but this 'What if' is....
25% are retiring within 5 years . I’m interning right now and most likely am getting hired . Using both coding and network makes you great
If you understand the C/C++ programming languages or other low-level languages used in networking hardware and protocols, you may be able to pivot to a development role that allows you to make software for networking equipment. I would bet that Cisco, Juniper, Palo Alto, and other networking companies would be looking for folks who can do that -- although I do not know the extent to which this is true.
The problem I see to begin with is that many Network Technicians call themselves Network Engineering and see their jobs being threatened by automation, So I think the premise is wrong. No offense to anyone, but repetitive task intensive jobs will ALWAYS be replaced by new technologies. There is nothing repetitive about the engineering part of networking.
My thought, When company networks are built, its the hardest part,
AI can take over the rest of the way.
Outages, AI will be able to automatically switchover the load
OR apply the fix to the issue, that just popped up with the network outage.
I think it's a RIP. The AI already knows most of this stuff, so there's not really much need in getting certified. System admins will inherit most of the network engineers roll though AI and large corporations will outsource. A local network engineer will be replaced by a cellphone with a crossover cable. I give it 5-10 years and Network Engineering is completely gone as an independent roll. Maybe sooner, we never really know what big tech is into.
yes dying since it is nit an easy field to enter ,no labs while starting out and the high level engineers never share knowledge, i had spend a lot of money to learn stuff....not a great career better to do software engineering ...the oncall will take a toll on your health. there is my 2 rupees
Bespoke cobol code is much, much harder and riskier to rewrite and replace than networking gear. Not the greatest comparison.
I just think Network Engineering is cool
IT is a great career if you want to get treated like a second-rate janitor.
You should just go bald, my man. Own it and love it.
Most network engineers are a bunch of do nothings unless you work for a fortune 500 with ancient tech.
If you've never issued "debug ip packet" on a core device, you're not a real network engineer. 🤣🤣🤣
Hmmm listen to 3 nerds talk for 30 minutes or go live my life?
so "live my life" = surfing youtube? You need a better life :)