00:00
This is the Art of Network Engineering podcast.

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this podcast to look for teams, technologies, and talented people. We aim to bring you information to expand your skill sets and toolbox and share the stories of fellow network engineers. Welcome to the art of network engineering podcast. My name is Aaron Weiler. I'm one of your co-hosts. You can find me all over the internet as Aaron engineered and with me, I have Andy Lapteff. Hello everybody. Uh, who is at Andy Lapteff.

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currently undergoing a rebranding to permit IP Andy Andy. Stay tuned. AJ Murray. How's it going? You can find him all over the internet at No Blinky Blinky at No Blinky Blinky, pretty much everywhere toys are sold. And then last, certainly not least, Mr. Daniel Richards out there in Tennessee. Howdy. He avoids the internet like the plague, although he knows how it works. That was.

01:05
enough for him to realize he wanted to stay off of social media. So that's kind of his shtick. So we have a very distinguished, prominent guest from the community. His name is Danny and he's joining us today. We just kind of wanted to pick his brain a little bit because we find it beneficial for us selfishly to learn from the other people and kind of how they went through things and maybe some day to day stuff that they go through that...

01:35
you wouldn't know about from reading a book or taking a course or even getting an MBA. So we draw on those experiences to make us smarter selfishly, like I said. So we're going to share that with everybody else because that's just how nice we are. So Danny, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself, sir? Hey, guys. Danny Finan, design architect at Value Added Reseller. Not sure if I can name drop here or not. So we'll leave that one for later. Go for it.

02:04
Go for it. All right. So, um, yeah, I'm a design architect over at Red River Technologies Been doing networking for over 15 years now First five were from the Marine Corps next Seven ish, I guess we're over in healthcare and then from their professional services and finally Where I'm at today Just kind of guess overall my background, you know, it's always just trying to make it work. I remember being that

02:34
that a go back to the marine the pfc sitting there in front of a blinking monitor and then go okay configure the bgp And i'm like, why do marines have bgp? I thought you guys just carried rifles. That's why i'm here So I guess that excuse didn't work out um You know at the end of the day, I just didn't want to fail. So I kept Kind of keeping that mantra for the past 15 years, you know, don't give up don't fail and

03:02
It's gotten me pretty far so far. Yeah, I would say so. I mean, so those are obviously in the military, you're not a design architect, right? What was the first job out of the military then in IT? In the Marines, that was technology systems. So it was your one stop IT shop, network, server, and end user computing, that kind of stuff.

03:27
But I actually got my CCNP right before I got out of the Marines. So I was lined up for a networking gig in healthcare. Started as a network engineer too, progressed into a senior network engineer before honestly I'll agree that and moved on to a value added reseller. Basically you switched sides, right? So, so everybody that doesn't know what a value added reseller is, can you explain that to us? Yeah, sorry about that. So basically,

03:56
What you can do is you order, anybody can go on eBay, anybody can go on Amazon, buy your Cisco switches, buy your Juniper gear. What a value added resellers trying to do is, it's going to sell really bad, add value to what they're reselling. The name is the recipe. So if you're buying, for example, a NAC, they're going to sell you Cisco ice, no big deal.

04:22
but they're also going to look at your infrastructure and say, oh, I see you're also running Firepower. Do you know that your ICE identities you're using here can be used over in Firepower? So it's really that looking at the customer, obviously we need to sell stuff to stay in business, but when we look at the customer, I'm not trying to make a one-time sell. I'm not trying to just say, okay, this duct tape will hold it all together until I'm out of their state.

04:46
It really is about, okay, here's what they got. Here's all their Legos so far. But if they go buy that Harry Potter castle set, well, then I can take it to the next degree. Then I can really start adding to their collection and fitting them with their business goal. So, so basically we call, you know, the podcast is called the art of network engineering. You got the art, my friend. That's it. Right.

05:13
That's the art part, I would imagine, right? Because I mean, look, there's so much of it is scientific. I mean, you can read the stuff that we read, like technical documents and white papers. I mean, they are, that's about as sciency as it's gonna get, right? And so it's a tough read, but there has to be something out there to manipulate it. I'll just give you an example, because I feel like your job is cool, because it's much like mine, selfishly.

05:39
No, but more so I like the art part of it because you're going in and you've got this list of like technical stuff in your head. So you know how all that works, right? Now those are just like tools in your chest so that you can just kind of walk up and grab whatever tool you want. But you know, you don't have like a multi-tool, right? You've got a bunch of very specific individualized tools that you can use for any job and or paint a picture, right? So to speak. So you can go in and say, Hey, look, yeah, any of these will work.

06:09
But it's why this will work, because of your environment, X, Y, Z, right? So you have more colors on the palette to paint with, I guess is the best way to put it. It really reminds me, if you guys ever remember that Lemony Snicket that had Jim Carrey in it. It's like when the inventor kid goes out and he sees, or no, it was the guy, the guy read the books, and he sees a picture and all of a sudden these books start sliding out of the shelf of what he needs to reference for his knowledge.

06:39
Like that's really what it seems like. You go somewhere and they're like, oh, well, you know, we're running such and such. You're like, okay, that makes sense. But we want to do this. You're like, oh, but wait, we add some of this over here and grab some of that spice. And I never thought in my life, I would need to adjust the EIGRPK value, but now I do, you know, and you're so proud of yourself because you're like, I finally figured out that one use case when anybody would ever want to do this.

07:04
I still haven't come across that one, but I bet it's out there. I'm waiting for it. I bet it is. Yeah, I know. I think I do enough smack talking on here that I got like a world of hurt coming to me because everything that I say like poor frame relay, I'm going to get somewhere next week and they're going to be like, so we have this gigantic 600,000 site frame relay network and we're going to need you to re-IP it and just watch me just like faint in my chair. That's just karma for me, I guess. But yeah, like- That's all about mapping to DLC.

07:33
If you get us started on this, it's just not going to end well because I can't contain myself and it's not with enthusiasm. It's with grotesque anger, pure hatred. But anyway, so yeah, I think being an architect is one of those things that people don't think about and this is just me projecting a little bit. They don't think about when maybe they're like in school, like college per se or like yourself in the military.

08:01
I mean, did you know that maybe an architect, but like, you're more of a, you're a designer too, right? So like, did you know that that job existed when you were in the military and you were just kind of getting your CCNP? I'll be honest, no. Yeah. For starters. And I mean, even now it was just like, I'm just trying to make sure I see that SNMP like link state up, adjacency up. Like as long as I see that, I'm happy. It doesn't matter.

08:31
what the

09:00
kind of draw that line in the sand there. But for me it was, you know, I was always kind of leading the projects even in my customer environment. It was always, this is the project I'm doing, these are the resources I needed, here's the capital I'm asking for, and packaging that up. And then coming over to Red River, it was that same kind of mentality. Okay, customer wants me to do this, so I don't have to worry about money, but here's the people I need, here's how we need to do this.

09:30
And really, this solution just kept getting bigger and bigger. It's like a junkie looking for that next fix. Like, oh, cool, I just did firepower. Well, that's a good start. But, oh, firepower and ice. Yeah, that's that's getting it going. Oh, what's what's that stealth watch over there? Oh, yeah, I got to hit that, too. And you just you keep throwing ingredients in there because you just can't get enough. You need the next thing to come in there with it. So so speaking of ingredients, let's say architect was a pie chart.

09:59
nitty gritty nerd knobs fill up more of the pie chart or is it a big picture thing? Like what what is the day in the in the life of an architect? I think that's such a loaded question because I know architects where the nerd knobs have to get the little line off of the pie chart because they're such a small sliver they don't they're so worried about the big picture that they don't know the the individual tech pieces.

10:25
For me, I can't even put it on a pie chart. I'd have to stack it. You know, I can't design if I don't understand the product. And I know plenty of people that can, maybe that's a shortcoming of mine. But you know, if we're putting in, you name, like if I'm putting in a Zscaler or Prisma access, if I don't understand how that gets implemented and how it works, how can I confidently build on that? Because if I'm assuming that I can use identities from the NAC and actually it's SAML, then I'm kind of stuck. I'm like, well, wait.

10:54
now my whole design breaks down. So I can't even pie chart it to me. It's, it's both. You have to understand the tools and then once you understand the tools, you understand how to put it all together. I mean, that's my thing. Aaron, sounds like we're cut from the same cloth. What do you think? No, I would say, cause I thought where you were starting to go with it was, I like your approach of stacking, but I thought where you're going to go was like, you know, it depends on where you are in the stack would vary the

11:23
the size and shape of the pie, right? Like, so using your stack model, like going further up the stack, you know, pragmatically just kind of going through the steps. And then, you know, now you're in this design phase. I mean, you know, throw the nerd knobs out the window at that point, right? It's like half product solution set mixed with the other half of design. It's like 50-50.

11:48
Right, you know and you're like, okay, I gotta make everybody happy. Um, but then you move on to like, you know, the earlier stages and it's just like you're just gathering information, right and Then you're really starting to think in a different Track. I mean it's it keeps you on your toes, which is probably why It's such a fun job. Honestly, um, there's never two that are the same Every network is different. Um, I think it's cool. Daniel has a different experience than than um

12:18
most of us. Andy's been a few places, but Andy just runs a single WAN right now, just like Daniel. They have a single LAN WAN. And it's strange to me because I always think like what kind of day to day stuff would you have to be doing there? Because I have so many different networks that I'm touching at the same time and none of them are remotely close in nature. You know?

12:44
And it's just strange. For me, I guess basically what I'm saying is I would throw that question back on Dan. Like, what does your pie chart look like? Because mine I can't even describe. But I'm curious, what does a normal person's look like? Because all I do is hear problems and try to come up with solutions. Yeah, so most of my pie is probably like playing Halo and sending memes.

13:14
Are they halo memes too? Are you double dipping? Yeah, red versus blue man. I didn't know you guys had halo out there yet. It just dropped man. Mine's kind of all over the map though. I mean I can be speaking with a vendor. We have multiple vendors for different products. Mine can be working on like... The other day I was working on a VPN tunnel between us and a vendor. They were having issues with...

13:44
I think they had a weird net on their side that they weren't adding to the correct IP on our side because we, because we had, we share a similar subnet on each side of the tunnel. And so they had to do some kind of weird net. And I mean, that's like one example, right? And that doesn't happen all the time, but it's just, you have so many different vendors. No, it could be one vendor, one day, a completely different vendor another day type. Yeah. I think maybe your situation is more like, uh,

14:13
Every day is like a unique problem with almost like a nerd knob. Right? So like, yeah, like, like, okay. So in, in a situation that you just described, you're like, you know what? I'm I've done nothing but try to get this VPN to work all day. Which is very big pain in the butt. Um, but like, I don't look at, at the, like the macro level like that. Ever. You know what I mean? I'm like,

14:41
You know, I don't tell anybody like, like, hey, make sure you're using this sort of encryption for your VPN because this vendor is the only using this. You know, I don't I don't get to that level. Well, Dan's flying the spaceship at the end of the day. I feel like, Aaron, what you're describing is, you know, we're out there. We're saying, hey, these are the thrusters you should buy. These are the good ones. Here's your fuel ratio. But Dan gets in the spaceship. He's the one who's got to navigate it once it gets out there to say.

15:08
Okay, well, they gave me the thrusters, but here's where I got to let them lose. Here's how I have to avoid that giant meteor coming. Or I'm going to be calling Aaron again and being like, Hey man, there's thrusters you just put in. Yeah. I lost them somewhere along the way. Yeah, that makes sense. Um, it's almost like, you know, we, we get everything together and basically have come up with a decision that's going to affect the rest of your life for you.

15:36
But we just slide you the manual. We're like, here you go. Actually, we'll send you the PDF so that you can control off your problem. You know, I didn't realize I had anxiety in design architect now, but I'm glad we added that back in. Now I can have anxiety every time we're solutioning. Yeah. You're welcome. Whose life did I just destroy? Mike, you guys know this is going to be a lot of heavy lifting, right?

16:03
They're like, oh yeah, I don't think you do. It's all bad. No, network refreshes are hard, man. So like a value added reseller is, is a cool job to have because it's not always just like a network refresh, it could be an augmentation or, you know, it could be a greenfield, you know, it could be, you know, just adding to what they currently have. So, I mean, there's lots of cool, different things you can do within that.

16:32
I just think you get accelerated network. I don't know how to put that. Visibility. You get desensitized. You're like, yeah, I've seen that. Yeah. It goes back. When I transitioned, ice had just come over the crest. Most people had it. Most people were aware of it. But I think that's my best example is ice. I remember putting ice in for my environment. It's really like this is...

17:01
This is ice. Okay, this is the best practice because I looked at the Cisco white papers and I researched this and I asked Cisco and I went through all this stuff. But then coming over here, you know, the first six months, there's five more ice projects. So the first one you put it in and you get that off and everything's working. You're like, yeah, you come over here and you kind of get it working. Like, yeah, I've seen it. So you know, like, no, I don't want to do I don't even want to do that one. That one. I'm used to that.

17:27
So was there already architects at Red River when you got hired there? Or are you the only guy? No, I wish that would be, that would be cool. No, the team had already been formed. In fact, one of the, our wireless expert was one of the people instrumental in getting me over. It's just I've known him for the past, at that time, eight years, but now eight plus now, how many years? But when I came over, actually the guy who used to hold my spot,

17:57
extremely brilliant individual. He was dual CCIE network or route switch and security. And literally he was the guy you wanted to know. If you had a question and it was a networking question, go ask him. And he could. So yeah, well, like I said, the guy who used to have my position because they needed to find a new sucker for it. But I mean, he was the guy in the know, he knew everything, he knew where to point you.

18:26
Um, but ultimately, you know, he was the only guy in the know and where we started growing, uh, what would that be horizontally? So not just within Cisco, but all the other OEMs now, um, it works out great for me because I can reach out to all the OEMs and get support, but for him, I think his head exploded, you know, now wait, you're telling me I need to go replicate what I have with Cisco over with Juniper over with Aruba over with.

18:54
Arista, oh, I need to worry about VMware now and ACI because data center fell under him. And I think he's like, I'm tapping out. I'm drowning here. Um, and he moved on and like his next role was a management position, uh, management director somewhere around there. So it fits him. He's got the technical background, but in terms of hands on keys, I think he's, he's hanging up his keyboard. I think he was the only guy that I know. And I need to ask him at some point. He's, he might be the only one I know that didn't suffer from the imposter syndrome.

19:24
He was actually confident in what he did. Maybe he just was also desensitized. Is that the cure to the imposter syndrome? That's the big question. It could be. You know, I think if you don't have it, there's something wrong with you. Personally. But I'm not saying you always have it. Maybe the idea should be, you know, when you feel like you don't have it anymore, you're in the wrong job.

19:54
So let me ask, is that something you would, you would go to an engineer with if you, you said, Hey, let's go with solution X over here. And, but maybe your knowledge level on that solution X isn't that deep. It would you go to an engineer, another architect, or just reach out to maybe that, that vendor or like, what would your next steps be in that? Yeah, I guess for me, like the big one was, um,

20:21
I remember like Prisma Access and Zscaler because I don't know either solution to the nth degree. I know that I had put in Z or my team, I shouldn't even say me. I know my team had put in Zscaler. I know my team had put in Prisma Access. How they integrate, how they work, I know a little bit. So I think that's going back to the pie chart. That's part of the pie chart is, okay, the customer wants this set of functionality. I know that these solutions can do it.

20:50
Now I'm going to go back to the OEMs and say, hey, you said you can do this. How do you do this? And so I think another piece of that is translating what the customer is asking for to what the OEM is saying they can do. Because a lot of times customers will ask for, will think they're asking for one thing when really they're asking for another. So they're ignoring maybe a particular OEM or a particular technology because they're like, oh, that doesn't fit what I'm looking for.

21:18
Well, actually it does. It's just, you're not looking at it the right way. So is that a familiarity thing though too? Because, you know, I would find that sometimes I'm not saying myself, I try to be agnostic, but your familiarity with something will help your own, um, convincing of yourself, right? Like, you know, all things created equal. It's like, okay, so Greenfield.

21:46
I had the choice 50-50 between Juniper and Cisco. What do I do? I have familiarity with both, right? I mean, the answer is, you know, obviously you want to gauge the customer's level of, you know, committedness there to either one of those vendors, but if it was entirely up to me, well, I mean, what difference does it make? And usually it probably comes down to like, well, okay, maybe I'm a little bit more comfortable with Cisco since they both kind of do the same thing.

22:15
And then all of a sudden, you know, the seesaw starts tipping. Cause now I got another Cisco one under my belt and guess what I'm going to do the next time around. Well, I just did, you know, a hundred site implementation of, you know, ISRs and, you know, so I don't know. I, it's hard to be vendor agnostic, um, and really not point them to, towards something that you're almost like a fanboy of too.

22:44
You know? Yeah, but I think if you know that it's a solid solution, why not recommend it? No, that's what I'm saying. So like all things being completely equal, right? Like I think Juniper is just solid as Cisco. There's gonna be like nuances of both, right? But if it was like completely new and it's like, I guess I'm like, I know it's happening, but I would say like unconscious bias, but I'm totally conscious of it. But I think that goes into play a little bit because it's like,

23:12
I use this all the time, right? Like all my stuff in my home lab is Cisco, you know, that's all I touch. That's all I read papers on usually. Uh, cause their stuff's the best written. So I'm probably like outlining the world economy at this point because like, I w I'm like, I wonder what the numbers are of like people that have suggested, like people like yourself, like who's a VAR and, um,

23:37
people in my position who have control as to what equipment goes where for some of these large deals. It's like, and if I had just like threw up a quarter and said heads or tails, like you're going to one vendor or another. And then all of a sudden I started doing that vendor and over and over and I'm more apt to sell it, right? Or be comfortable with it because I've done it so many times. And now all of a sudden, like everybody's doing it, right? And then they have the market share and I just collapsed the world's economy and gave all the money to one vendor.

24:07
So I have to say with that, because I completely agree with you. And again, hashtag love where you work. One thing I love about Red River is having all these OEMs. I'm trying my hardest to get away from exactly what you're talking about, because you're right, it is bias. I have a greenfield deployment and money's not an option. Okay, your Cisco catalyst go here with your Cisco Nexus over here, and your Cisco and your Cisco and your Cisco. So really what we started doing was we built out

24:36
We're actually, I say we, I need to go finish building out the second lab that we have in Virginia. But we're getting away from the hardware and we're getting to the point where we're trying to tell the story. So when you think about Cisco's story for the access layer, you know, DNA Center, SDA, ICE, that's the story they're telling you. But you can't just say, well, this is why Cisco is better. If you turn around, you look at like Juniper's Juno Security Suite.

25:05
Juno's security director and all that. That's a story. And quite honestly, you know, when you look at these customers who best and breed everything, I have Juniper switches and I have Palo firewalls. It's like, yeah, you got best and breed, but you don't have anything to show for it because you're waiting for these two OEMs to say, it's okay, I didn't want that market share here, you can have it. So really, I mean, that's what I'm trying to work towards is to say, what's the Juniper story?

25:32
If I gave a customer a full Juniper network, this is what you'd gain. Do you want that? Because some of them it's like, no, I don't, I don't care. I don't want that. It's like, all right, well fine. Well, do you want this over here? You know, but giving that story really helps the customers translate what that dollar amount and what that, that statement of work is in terms of what they're trying to align their company to. Dude, here's a question. How does one.

26:01
So since the cat's out of the bag now, we all know what a design architect is, solutions architect, sign architect. How does one aim themselves in that trajectory? Like, let me just give you an example. So I just passed my CCNA yesterday. I didn't miss a single question. I'm ready to go for the workforce, right? I'm applying for jobs starting tomorrow. How do I get...

26:29
to the point where I can be a solutions architect. Pay your dues. I know that sounds dumb, but I think that that's, if I were to give anybody advice, it's pay your dues. Even like you said, Aaron, you have to get that experience. You have to get rid of, things have to become mundane to you because you've seen it so many times, you've seen it so many different ways. Because the number one question that's always asked is, what's everybody in the industry doing?

26:58
Well, what else, you know, what are customers in my industry doing? Yep. Well, how do other people do this? So if you're trying to go in and you're like, Hey, like you said, I aced my CCNA. I'm ready for the big leagues. Heck, I aced my CCIE, but I've never seen a, you know, I've never seen a production network. It's not going to work out because so much of it is experience and it's a snowball effect. You see one network, then you see two.

27:23
You had to see the third one because you've seen these two and they recommended you. Now you see four, five, 20, 30. And you see so many networks and so many implementations of the same products. You can talk to the customer. You can see what their shortcomings were. Just because you sold them a particular piece of technology, you walked away and they realized that the overhead of it is ridiculous. Splunk. And so they just said.

27:51
You know I love it. It's a log aggregator. It's doing everything I want, but I can't search for data because I slept through my SQL class in college. You know, and that's the kind of feedback you need to hear you need. And then you go talk to spork and you say, listen guys, you have an awesome product. I'm hearing complaints that people just can't find it intuitive and they're like, well, go to show him where the technology add-ons are. And you're like, okay, I didn't know that was a thing, but it's really building that experience. So.

28:20
100% on your CCNA through CCIE, JNCIE. First thing I'm gonna tell you is go pay your dues. If you are ready to go, willing to travel, willing to meet a lot of customers, go team up with professional services and spend at least three years in professional services. Preferably like 10 years experience, but at least three years in professional services. What's professional services for those of us who don't know? Oh, sorry. Those are the guys who are actually doing it. So...

28:48
I get the luxury of designing these complex, you know, thousand different technology solutions and going, okay, guys, giddy up. Here you go. Let me know if you got any questions. And they just get a bunch of boxes. Exactly. You're about to get three skids worth of stuff.

29:07
Here's some crayon drawings on the back of a bar napkin. Let me know if this works for you. And some power cables. Usually the wrong power cables. And the wrong power cables. They're all DC. So Danny, you said pay your dues. And so I'm a network engineer and I basically implement what my architects design and hand over, just like you said. And I think my, you know, my career goal eventually, I mean, you know, what, you want to reach the peak, right? So I.

29:36
I would like to be an architect someday, but I guess it's different for each person. And I like to ask architects, I mean, I want to be an architect, how do I become one? And I had one guy tell me, well, you have to learn all the systems in the data center. You have to know about network and load balancers and servers and blah, blah, blah. So I guess my question to you is like, how would I know when I can go from implementer guy...

30:05
who gets handed designs to an architect, a guy who's designing. And I know you said pay your dues and it is probably different for each person, but how do I get there, I guess? You're talking to an implementer. I've been building networks, I've been maintaining networks, I've been in the job for, I don't know, maybe five years now. I don't understand design that well, to be honest with you, so maybe I need to jump into design.

30:33
Anytime I get an opportunity to talk to an architect, it's like, hey, how do I get, you know, to where you are? And I get pay your dues, but is there any other? Yeah. Give him an actionable plan here. Like what would be your first steps? Be as specific as possible, please. Now give it, we'll use Andy here as an example, cause I think this goes against like what we were talking about earlier. Tons of experience doing exactly what you said. He's the guy that you get to handle the design.

31:02
Where does he go from here? Right, so I guess the first thing is, I'm sorry for quoting all these movies, but guess what I do in my spare time? They just better be good. Spider-Verse, Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse, when Miles Morales says, well, how do I know when I'm ready? And he says, you won't, it's a leap of faith. And I really like, that's why I love that movie, because it literally is believing in yourself and knowing I'm ready for this.

31:30
So to your point, Andy, you get handed these, go do this, go do this. When you start looking at that and kind of questioning it, well, wait a second, I see why he designed it this way, but what about this piece? Is he forgetting this piece? And I'll admit, I feel like I'm probably one of the luckiest people in the world. I don't think I'm smart, I think I'm just really, really lucky. Because for me, I've been working for...

31:59
and with really amazing people for the past 15 years. So when I have those questions, when I go back and say, yeah, again, I still remember being the peon marine and going to my captain, getting yelled at later by my staff sergeant, but going to my captain and saying, sir, you know, I see that you requested a slash 24. Didn't you mean a slash 21 here? And, you know, then the staff sergeant pulls me aside and corrects me for my actions.

32:28
and the captain has to interrupt him and go, Staff Sergeant, that'll be all. Lance Corporal, fine, PFC, fine, you're right. That was a 21, we have eight networks here. So it's these small things and you eventually, you outgrow yourself. You get to that point when you look at these implementations and you say, I know why I'm doing this, I know how I'm doing this, I don't wanna keep doing this because there's no excitement, there's no thrill, I'm not learning anything, I'm just not progressing anymore.

32:57
And, you know, I feel like everybody on this podcast, I listened to all his podcasts so far, you'll know, because you'll outgrow yourself. Um, and you'll, you'll have no way to go and you'll say, I need some new challenge. And when you hit that point, you're gonna, you're going to move to the next role. Not all engineers evolve into architects. You know, some go into management because they love enabling other people. Some go into teaching because.

33:24
They understand it, they know it, but they want to, they love watching that spark happen with somebody else. Me personally, I'm selfish. I like solving problems myself. I like watching everything come to light off of me planting that seed. So for me, architect was a beautiful thing. And really it came from me meeting with a customer about, oh, you know, an install. And by the time we're done talking, they're calling up their sales rep saying, okay, well, I'm also gonna need

33:53
two of these firewalls and he had mentioned some sort of IDS network thingy and I need one of those. And so you're generating these solutions because you're looking at what the customer has and you're saying, or you're looking at what the environment has and you said, but if we just had this, if we just had this one more thing, our network would be 10 times better. And so it's really seeing the next step and the next two steps, what's around you and how to make it better.

34:23
That actually makes a lot of sense. And questioning the designs you're handed and asking if there's a better or different way. And I guess the follow-up to that would be, you mentioned imposter syndrome earlier. I know in my career, every time I've kind of reached that quote unquote next level and I'm surrounded by smarter and smarter people, that's when my imposter syndrome kicks in, because I'm comparing myself to these super brains and I'm like, oh man, how do I match up? So did it get worse when you...

34:51
Did take that step into architecture? Like, oh my God, I'm surrounded by geniuses. Do I belong here? I feel like every time you move up one wrong on that ladder, you're going to get that, you're going to get slapped with that again because you, you're entering a new environment. You know, when I worked in the customer environment for me, I felt like I knew everything that was happening. I knew all of my loopback management IPs off the back of my head. Like I could get to anything.

35:19
Oh PC at this IP address is having an issue. Well, that means it's correlated to this. And that came from, you know, you had it all mapped out. So I felt like I knew what I was doing. I mean, when we left there, we were usually standing up, tearing down around 10 off sites a year. So for me building it soup to nuts, you know, to the point of quoting out the APCs and the racks and everything, that was second nature. And then I came and worked at Red River, you know, as a bar.

35:47
And I was back, I wasn't even at square zero, I was at like square negative two. Because everybody's better than me. I've only seen one environment. These guys have seen, you know, even the most junior guy after me has already seen 10 networks. So it really felt like, okay, when are they going to catch on and finally fire me? You know, and to be honest, I don't think a day of my life, I'm not an anxious person, but I don't think there's been a single work day of my life where I'm not like.

36:17
they're going to figure me out today's the day. And that's comforting for me to hear because yeah, that comes up a lot, especially if you are pushing yourself and trying to get better and better and you're like, oh my God, yeah, when are they going to find out and walk me out the door? I mean, it's ridiculous if you take a step back and think about that thought process we're having, but it's always comforting to me because I'm sitting here listening to you and Aaron talk and I'm like, wow, this guy's really smart.

36:43
He knows a lot of stuff I don't. I've never touched ice. I don't even know what this other thing is, he said. But then to hear that somebody at your level also feels sometimes that imposter syndrome. It just helps me because it's comforting to know somebody like you. I mean, I'm sorry that it hits you, but it helps me. It honestly, I mean, to your point, it is kind of ridiculous to think about. It is kind of silly to say, oh, you know.

37:09
I'm going to be fired tomorrow, especially when you get that one negative feedback. That's when my anxiety really does kick in. Like here it comes. The castle's crumbling. This one customer got upset with me. It's all downhill from here. Um, but I mean, to me, I w I would rather deal with a million people. In fact, I used to work with this really great engineer, horrible anxiety, suffered from the imposter syndrome literally every day. I met him, did not mess up a single implementation in the time we worked together.

37:38
He's like, anytime I'd give him a project, his classic line, dude, I'm not your guy. Like, what do you mean you're not my guy? Like you've done Meraki a million times, you're just going to give a class on what you've done. I'm telling you, I'm not your guy. I'm not gonna mention any names, but there's somebody that all of us know who might or may not be on this podcast. He tells me all the time, he's like, dude, I don't know what you're seeing. I'm like, you have no idea how much I look up to you and how brilliant you are.

38:06
and he's telling me that he's got the imposter syndrome. I'm like, this is contagious. But it means you're pushing yourself. It means that you're not comfortable saying, I can make VLANs and I'm done. You're continuing to just haze yourself with technology over and over. So you're never taking the time to realize what you've actually already been able to accomplish. And it does seem like a side effect of that pushing yourself to be better and better. I mean, I know in my old jobs, and I'm not knocking them, but guys who were there really-

38:36
time. I don't really think they felt like imposters because they did reach that pinnacle where they knew it all and they stayed there and I'm not judging, but yeah, if you keep pushing yourself and getting uncomfortable, I think it just comes with that. Is the theme that like you should always sort of feel imposter syndrome or you're doing it wrong? I would say if you don't, if you don't get hit with imposter syndrome at least once a week or more, then chances are you're, you're probably the guy who's been with your company so long that you know all the ins and outs.

39:06
and you're not trying to bring in new technologies, you're not trying to shake the ground that it's built on, you're comfortable and at the end of the day, maybe that's good. There's certain situations where you're not trying to revolutionize your IT landscape. If you're in financials with low latency stock trading, chances are you're not like, hey, here's what we're doing four hour downtime during the day. So you need those guys, but...

39:35
It is a side effect. You know, if you don't feel like you're an imposter, if you don't look in the mirror and go, today's the day I'm getting fired because everybody realizes I suck. You don't see that once a week. Chances are you're on vacation. Or you just, you need a new challenge in front of you. Yeah, that's a healthy growth. I think it's a different thing too, for someone like you who interfaces with customers and suggests all this stuff.

40:04
there's a different kind of imposter syndrome and it's like external to your company. Right? Like, so that's a, that's a whole nother imposter syndrome, right? You're, you're dealing with people that you've never met before that you're just assuming they're much smarter than you. Right. Cause maybe they have a higher title. I don't know, but just, just having like a title that like a, you know, a large company, like, like a large financial service.

40:32
that somebody like Andy might work at, right? Like if I was interfacing with them, I might be a little intimidated because that's important information, right? So the guys they got on board, like Andy, they're smart guys. I have to convince them and they're gonna ask me every little thing, right? It's almost like every time you go into one of these meetings, it's like a new, it's a test. It's not multiple choice, right? It's like, it's a field. Pass fail. Yeah, it's a pass fail and it's like an essay test, right?

41:01
you gotta articulate your words and you gotta find out the subject that you're trying to talk and then get your point across with people that, you know, could potentially be smarter than you. I mean, don't you feel that that's, that exists as well? I definitely have title shock and it's funny because, um, uh, as, as you were saying that I'm thinking back to these different people I met, I'm going to butcher it. So I'm going to have to do the general version. I met a very, very, very, very high level.

41:31
um individual over a civilian government entity. I think that sounds about right. Um and that was probably gosh four or five months after working at Red River. And I mean I'm going in here and this is the person who's on like the top floor of a DC building and granted you know there's there's the support team and we're trying to explain these complex solutions.

42:00
And before that, the highest person I talked to, you know, I knew some directors, some of the stuff at the hospital I worked at, but this lady is in charge of, you know, full departments of the government. And I'm like, I'm going to sit here and I'm going to shut up and I'm not going to add any, I'm not going to open my mouth because I'm going to have her just sit here and think I'm, you know, some guy sitting here just eye candy rather than open my mouth and prove like, oh, my gosh, you're kicked out. Don't ever talk to me again.

42:30
But you know what's funny is as you start talking, as you start loosening up in those meetings, and you gotta have at least an hour, because the first 10 minutes, you're just stressed to the max. But then you start relaxing, you're like, if I blow it, I blow it. And by the time we were done with this meeting, you know, the main, at the time I wasn't a solution architect, the gentleman who was did a great job presenting. And you know, because he did such a high level, I was his color commentator.

42:59
You know, well, I don't understand what you mean when you say identity. Oh, let me explain that, ma'am. You know, identity can be anything and you kind of go into it, but you start loosening up. So I'm with you. I mean, I definitely get that title shock. Um, I can say I work for a VP now. I have never worked for directly for a VP before. So the, my first reaction was like, Oh man, I am, I am crushing it. Like I am so happy right now. And then that was immediately followed by.

43:28
Oh crap, VPs are definitely going to realize I'm an imposter. Why did I make this move? I need to go hide under the stone I just came from and hope nobody disturbs it. You think that's because a VP would technically know what you're talking about? Or what do you mean by that? By a VP would be the one to? Because they're going to be able to sniff the imposter on me. And the VP I work for now is an awesome guy. Comes from a programming background and I always make fun of him. But I mean.

43:58
brilliant guy. His background though is in programming. Not networking, he's told me so many times, I don't have the background in networking, that's why I want you on my team, that's why I have you on my team, you know, you're the network guy. And every time he says it, all I can think is, he can smell the imposter on me. He wanted to put me under this lime, like he put me under his team, so that he can show the whole company how much I suck. Like nobody else was able to figure it out. That's why I'm here.

44:27
Like when you're dealing with customers and like helping them and stuff and you know, you said the first 10 minutes are awkward. Do you find that it would make, I mean, maybe you haven't done it in a while, but do you find that it would make for an easier interview if you were to go interview right now after being a solutions architect? I've always kind of been the same on interviews.

44:50
You mean like if I were to interview for a job kind of thing? Yeah, so like they were asking you questions just like, you know, basically they would do now, right? Like, because if you were going to go for another engineering role, I know sometimes or architectural, sometimes I'll even ask you like, Hey, I've got all these sites, you know, you know, drop a solution for me. Just whiteboard it. Right. And which is exactly what you're doing right now. Right. On a day to day basis.

45:16
Does it feel different or like, you know, cause you're like under pressure, cause you know, being judged by a jury of your own peers, you know, imposter syndrome or, or, you know, is it literally just the same thing? So I feel like for me, for interviews, interviews have never been a problem. And again, I think it goes back to why it's called the imposter syndrome because at the end of the day, and I got a,

45:42
I can't wait, you know, we got to come back to the interview thing. I'm going to get my soapbox out. We're going to have a great chat about that one. Um, but really what it comes down to is are you comfortable in how you're presenting yourself? You know, if I go in there and I'm like, I am, I am your, uh, you know, data center architect, I'm going to talk to you about data center. We're going to go through, uh, ACI and.

46:07
the Juniper one that I can't remember, and we're going to talk about Arista networks, and we're going to software-define, you know, if I tried that, I would hope that the customer would kick me out, because I'm just not comfortable talking about that stuff. It's not my wheelhouse, and it's really not my comfort zone. But when we're talking about things that I'm comfortable with, the words just come out of my mouth, and my brain catches up later. My brain's going, okay, what did mouth say again?

46:36
All right. Yeah, that sounds like him. Somebody's got to get some duct tape over that guy at some point. But it really is it's second nature. You live it so often, you know, 40, 40 plus hours a week. You're spending managing and moving this stuff around. You're just used to it. So do you think it's fair then if like, you know, somebody has like three years experience and they've been like a network admin, let's say somewhere and they're looking to move up?

47:05
to ask them questions like that, like architecture-based questions. Like tell me what you would do here, right? Like here's a bunch of switches, here's a bunch of routers, here's how many clients I have, this many different campuses, hook them all together. I feel like, so my brother was making fun of me this.

47:31
This is just like more of the interview thing. My brother was making fun of me the other day because he says I'm too hard on people in interviews. And to me, I'm interviewing you for the position you're taking because I interview for all sorts of positions at Red River. And so if that job, to your point, if the interview consists of, I need you to link these five sites together, then I'm assuming that somewhere in that job description, you're going to be linking five or more sites together.

48:01
Now, if I tell you to create this policy-based rule set on the firewalls that has event-driven tasks in it, and you're applying for a network engineer that has nothing to do with security, well, that's not fair. That's ridiculous. Just because the guy interviewing knows it doesn't mean that he's got to push the guy, the interviewee, into trying to answer questions that aren't part of the job.

48:29
I think that I've seen that a few times in interviews and it really sours my taste for different companies that try to do that because you're trying to find, you're trying to basically break this guy's spirit to make him doubt himself over your own what, like satisfaction? Like what are you, are you getting your kicks from that? What's the deal? So I just feel when you look at jobs, you look at the job description, you should be able to accomplish those jobs.

48:59
and whatever that interview is should be a subset of what you're doing. And I would say the biggest asterisk I've got to put on this, I'm trying to find the right spot, I've got to just say it right here. Please don't lie on your resume, dear internet. Why not? No Danny, why not? Why not? We're going to need you to specify why exactly I can't lie. Wait, why I need to stop lying on my resume? Again.

49:29
If you might, I'm going to interview on the skills that are required for this job and what's on your resume because if you put things on your resume and I hire you and now I need somebody that does something and it's on your resume then I'm going to look to you because it's already an internal resource. I'm not going to go okay let's go outsource this or sub this out, you know, you should be able to do this and honestly I'm a big integrity person.

49:58
So I recently, I did an interview recently and this gentleman had, oh gosh, he ran the gambit of everything. Like go into Cisco and just find every acronym and put it on a resume kind of thing. So, you know, he said he did BGP and you know, he was interviewing for the professional services team where it's both network and security. So I kind of get, I get a little bit more leniency with this, with my questions that I'm asking. And I said, okay, well.

50:27
kind of walk me through a BGP setup. You know, and he goes, well, you peer them together. I said, or no, I'm sorry. There was the BGP, the OTV was the good one. And I said, okay, well, walk me through, why'd you use OTV? Well, because I wanted to stretch a layer two. I said, great, well, what was your use case? You know, I know what it does, but what was your use case? Tell me what you did here. Well, I stretched layer two. And I'm like, yeah, so were you running Unicast or Multicast because...

50:56
you know, again, data center, not my wheelhouse, but I know enough to not get tricked too bad. And he goes, well, no, no, I wasn't using, I mean, it could be unicast, it could be multicast, I'm stretching the layer too. And I said, but my question is, can you walk me through the technical implementation of what you did? And he's, well, we had servers in the same level. You're looking for him to say something like, OK, so I have the two routers at both sides.

51:25
I open them one and I set an interface to this and then I put this parameter in. That's what you're looking for, right? Some sort of substance that I'm not getting on Wikipedia. Right. Personally, if you want the gold star, if anybody ever comes to Red River and you're sitting on an interview with me and I ask you an OTV question, the biggest thing, the way to get the gold star and make me smile?

51:50
tell me about the fact that you now have the same network in two data centers and how you're routing to it. Because everybody looks at OTV and says, I'm stretching the layer too. And I'm like, fantastic. You now have the same network in two spots. So are you tromboning from left to right or right to left? You know, how are you handling that? And just so many people wanna talk, well, this is what Wikipedia tells me. So obviously things started going south and

52:19
I'm about to close down the tech portion, and this one might have been out of spite, I'll be honest. This is my confession. Forgive me, Aaron, for I have networks in. Yeah, well. Oh, so I was about to close down the tech portion of the interview, and I'm scrolling through his resume, and I come across programmability skills, colon, Python, Ansible, YAML, Yang, NetCom, RESTCom. I mean, this laundry list of stuff.

52:47
And I'm like, wow, that's a lot of stuff considering he's kind of bombed every other question. Maybe this dude's a DevNet guru. Like, so maybe we got some redeeming facts, something here. And so I, I cue it up. Um, by the way, I'll also get to my favorite question for everybody listening. Again, I'm giving them all the pointers on how to, how to get hired by me. Um, so anyway, so I queue up this question for him and I say, Oh, I see programmability. Can you talk a little bit about that?

53:16
You know, literally just open ended falls in your court. Oh yeah. The other team was making, um, programmability using Python. So they were using YAML and just kind of some of the phrases he was throwing around, I think he was talking about Ansible, but immediately I could tell it wasn't this, this isn't the guy who was doing it. He literally took all the words from DevNet that he heard, stuffed him into a line on his resume. And.

53:45
I said, well, what did you do with it? Yes. It broke down so fast. Don't lie. Please don't lie. All right. Danny, talk to Andy from 2012 who had no experience and only got a CCNA, and he was trying to create a resume to apply to jobs. What I did was pretty much put every protocol and every acronym that was in the CCNA because if I didn't, it would be, you know-

54:16
cable guy who wants more out of life. So what does that guy who doesn't have experience put on his resume without it looking like a lie? I wasn't trying to lie, I just didn't know what else to put at the time. Right. Hello, 2012 Andy. Let me tell you, buddy, playing in there in eight years, you're going to be freaking awesome. Unfortunately, He's lying. by the time I meet you. That Danny guy is lying. I don't know why he's doing it.

54:44
Unfortunately, by the time I meet you, there's going to be this thing called coronavirus. It's not going to be a good year for anybody. First off, you're not some cabler. You are a layer one infrastructure engineer. Oh, boy. Here we go. He's sounding like a politician now. I'm not going to lie. Well, you know, you interview people and there's probably people listening that are in that position or will be soon.

55:12
You know, what, what, what can they say? I mean, obviously play up your strengths, you know, yeah, you're, you know, you know, cabling, you know, physical, you want to work up the stack, all that good stuff, but what do you put on that resume? You know, to your point, um, one of the people that I was most passionate about bringing in, we had to bring him in as an intern. He was still in college, um, zero experience, literally just college. But he came in and he said, listen, here's so the point of the resume is to make me want to talk to you, you know, if you, if you think about it,

55:42
I have an opening, I need to bring somebody in. I know I want to talk to you. So if I'm already talking to you, we're already one step ahead. And we'll get to the talking piece. So on your resume, you're gonna list that CCNA because that's huge. I know so many people that have literally spent their lives in IT, no CCNA. Maybe a network plus here and there. Don't list expired certifications, no matter how proud of them you were at one time. That just shows me that you weren't trying to maintain them.

56:14
Okay, good. I did take down my CISSP. That one expired on me. But, you know, really talk to your strengths. So you ran cable. Did you have a team? Were you managing a team? Were you in control of your day while you were doing it? How did you... I look at that and I'm saying, okay, I do need an entry level engineer, somebody who knows the ropes, but I'm going to train up.

56:41
How's his time management? And honestly, entry level, what's your passion for IT? I'll give you a great example, my brother. My brother was Baltimore City Police for like 12 years ish, and then got into IT. Decided it's time for me to jump in and follow my younger brother's footsteps. Yes, I give him crap all the time. Finally, something over my older brother.

57:07
So he goes out, he gets a CCNA, or he asks me, what should I do? I say, go get a CCNA. And go get a job. Go get a job that needs your CCNA. He worked in a knock or a help desk, and then internally he moved over to the actual knock, and then he left there to work at another knock, and he took on a job contracting. And finally the job he's at, you know, he's administering, he's probably three years in the industry and he's doing

57:36
the firewalls, he's actually doing an ACI deployment. But the whole thing is you can't just say, all right, well, as a cabler, I'm CCNA and I'm a cabler. So at this point, I believe, I mean, roughly speaking, I should be a senior network engineer and anything less would just be ridiculous. You know, it goes back, pay your dues, find the job that's good for you. And, you know, ultimately, don't forget the companies that give you a chance. You know, that's...

58:04
That's probably one of my biggest things because, um, my last employer took a, took a risk on me, you know, here's some punk Marine just coming out, claiming to have a CCNP. Um, but, uh, I guess on your resume, you know, put down those skills, put down your time management, your management capabilities, the stuff that makes me want to talk to you and it doesn't have to be technology because it's entry level. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, that's good feedback. Um, I think to sum it all up, Danny, you've.

58:33
giving us a lot of good nuggets here. We've kind of woven an intricate tapestry across the IT landscape. A couple of gems, talk yourself up on the resume, but by golly, do not lie. Do not lie. If you're Daniel, you'd say dagummit, don't lie. Pay your dues, do what you gotta do to get to that next step. We...

59:01
Really appreciate your time and your feedback and your worldly experience, sir. Where can people find you on the internet if they were so inclined to do so? Well, thank you, sir. So I'm on Twitter at Semper Finan. Semper Finan, can you spell that? Yes, I can. S-E-M-P-E-R. F-I-N-E-I-N. Or if you go find No Blinky Blinky, you'll find me following him like a lost puppy.

59:31
Again, thanks for your time, man, for us and all the guys in the room here. We really appreciate it. We know you got other stuff you could be doing, but sharing your story with all the people that are listening is super valuable. Getting your perspective as a solutions architect is huge too, because that's a job that I would say that most people don't necessarily think about when they enter a networking field. So it's cool to hear your experience around that. So...

01:00:00
For links to all of our socials and all that good stuff in there, be sure to check out our website, which is awesome. It even has guest blogs on it. Maybe we're going to even put up one of Danny's, I think, at some point. Right, AJ? We are. The week that we drop Danny's episode, we will drop a blog article from Danny's blog, Semperfinein.com. Sweet. Links to that will be in the show description. A link to...

01:00:28
all the rest of our stuff on the internet and how to find us. Join our Discord channel as per usual. And until the next episode, see ya!

01:00:43
Hey everyone, this is AJ. If you like what you heard today, then make sure you subscribe to our podcast and your favorite podcatcher. Smash that bell icon to get notified of all of our future episodes. Also, follow us on Twitter and Instagram. We are at art of net eng. That's art of NETENG. You can also find us on the web at art of network engineering.com where we post all of our show notes. You can read blog articles from the co-hosts and guests.

01:01:10
and also a lot more news and info from the networking world. Thanks for listening.