Introduction to Consulting Engineers

Speaker 1 0:17

This is the Art of Network Engineering , where technology meets the human side of IT . Whether you're scaling networks , solving problems or shaping your career , we've got the insights , stories and tips to keep you ahead in the ever-evolving world of networking . Welcome to the Art of Network Engineering podcast . My name is Andy Laptev and today we are talking about a vendor role . So there are a ton of different cool roles that network engineers and network operators can get at networking vendors . We've had technical marketing engineers on the show , we've had people from tech and just all kinds of cool , good paying jobs at vendors that we've spoken about . And today we are talking about CEs or consulting engineers . What is that ? Is it like a sales engineer ? Is it similar ? Is it different ?

Speaker 1 1:10

So here we go , we're going to jump into the role and the purpose of covering these roles really is kind of what happened to me in my career as a network engineer , working all the time in maintenance windows and on call and all that stuff . And then I got introduced to a role at my former employer , juniper Networks , and I'm like , oh wow , this is great . I can not only impact . You know my old role . My impact was at a company , one of the things I love about working at a vendor is you can impact , you know , more than just one company . You can actually impact an industry if it goes well . So I really like that level of impact and the amount of people that we can help and the problems that we can solve on almost a global basis , as opposed to just one business . So , anyway , and it pays a little bit better , which doesn't hurt .

Speaker 1 1:54

So on the show today we have returning turning , uh , mr colin doyle hi , colin , howdy , howdy , sir . And a new face , a new voice , one of my favorite people that I have met recently in this uh new role at the place I'm at , and I just love this guy , jared cordova how you doing buddy , hey , mr laptop .

Speaker 2 2:18

Or and how you doing .

Speaker 1 2:19

Mr Laptop , that's my dad . So this is an open , easy peasy conversation . I mean , really , it's me asking questions and you guys answering them . So this should be pretty informative for the audience and easy for you guys , because I have asked Colin three or four times what a consulting engineer is . I love Colin's . So first of all , jared you what a consulting engineer is ? I love Colin's . So first of all , jared , you're a consulting engineer , right ? Ce ? Yes , sir , and Colin , what is your title ?

Speaker 3 2:50

I'm a principal consulting engineer , which means that I'm like Jared in principle .

Speaker 1 2:55

Oh , I was hoping you're going to tell the other joke that you can suspend students . Oh right , Exactly .

Speaker 3 3:01

I like them both , so the takeaway here is that I'd never give Andy a straight answer to any question he ever asked .

Speaker 1 3:08

This is true . I've known Colin for years and , yeah , he always keeps me guessing , which is good . Oh , we got a kitty , hi kitty . So , guys , let's start out with . What is this role ? What is a consulting engineer ? What do you guys do when you got the job description and you interviewed , like , what is this thing ? They call consulting engineer and a networking vendor ?

Speaker 3 3:32

Jared , you go first Cause . My response is going to be colored by my experience , so it'll likely be more meandering .

Speaker 2 3:40

Okay , well , mine's also going to be kind of kind of using my experience as well . So I think the I think to explain a consulting engineer , you have to explain how nokia works when it comes to sales . Uh , so for us we have an account manager who interacts directly with the customer from the beginning of the sale all the way to the end . Um , so pre and post sale , the entire . You know dealing with the relationship , the the beginning of the sale all the way to the end . So pre and post sale , the entire . You know dealing with the relationship the entire time , right . And then you have , you know , a step down from that with the sales engineer .

Speaker 2 4:10

So the sales engineer , because Nokia is a pretty big company , has to know both . You know IP , so layer two , layer three , technologies , as well as optical equipment . You know in terms of like line systems , right , optical line systems . And then you also go on and look at fixed networks as well with fiber . You know ONT , olts there . So there's a lot of technologies that Nokia sells and for a sales engineer they're covering a lot , right . So a lot of times they know a lot about . You know those three areas , but not super in-depth . So that's where we come into play as a consulting engineer is that we're able to help them . When it comes to IP , the customer says , ok , I need 50 routers or 50 switches .

What Consulting Engineers Actually Do

Speaker 2 5:04

What does that look like in my network ? Help them , create a concept , or able to show them , maybe give them some guidance in terms of what technologies they should use or what would help them in their certain case .

Speaker 1 5:08

I mean Colin .

Speaker 2 5:09

I know that you're much more experienced than me , so I'm talking very generally here . But for you , I mean , is that kind of similar ?

Speaker 1 5:15

Before Colin takes over , I just want to mirror that back to make sure I understand . So an SE has a higher level . They know the breadth and the you know the expanse of all the products . But then once a customer might land on a particular area , like you said , maybe an IP network or something like that then we need a specialist like you who can kind of go a little deeper in those particular products and technologies . Does that sound fair ?

Speaker 2 5:38

Yeah , it's pretty fair . I mean , a lot of our SEs are really good at what they do . It's generally when we get to the point where you know it's either platform specific differences right , or getting to the point where they're trying to understand what would be the best implementation or the best route to go . That's where we come in and we give our opinion on the situation right . So mostly they deal with , you know , the first couple conversations with the customer getting to a point where they don't . They don't know any further , like you know .

Speaker 2 6:06

Ok , so you know segment routing versus , versus . You know RCPTE , why , why , how do I talk to the customer about this ? Right , how do I , you know , if I want them to go segment routing route because it makes it easier for them , how do I convey that in the proper way ? And some sales engineers might not know that right . Some sales engineers are also . They might be more experienced in the optical side , they might be more experienced in the fiber side . So it just depends kind of on their experience as well when we come in .

Speaker 3 6:34

It starts with an understanding of how organizations like ours go to market , and they're all generally going to have account teams that map to customer opportunities or patches or regions , however they get sliced up , and in that role you'll have somebody who is on the sales side of the business and somebody who's on the engineering side of the business your account manager and your SE as those individual contributors essentially the tip of the spear , the frontline interface between the organization and the customer . Essentially for any business , this is the business that the customer will see . In that role you have to be a generalist of sorts . There's a certain minimum amount of information , knowledge , understanding , sales acumen that you need to possess across the entire portfolio . You might find that you specialize in certain areas of that portfolio because they're interesting to you , or you have some form of practical experience , or you've pursued enablement for those types of products because you've seen value either to yourself or intrinsically in the types of customers that you support . I know more about product X and I look at the composition of the customers I'm responsible for . They're predominantly going to be interested in product X . So the more I learn , the better I can sell as you move away from the field , that front line and towards the we'll say executive suite , something happens and it's different depending on which side of that sales versus engineering you're on .

Speaker 3 8:00

If you're on the sales side and you're starting to move up into the business , towards the C-suite , you're going to be making more macro decisions , decisions that abstract specific individual customers and start looking at revenue and opportunities at regional and then area levels . And if you're an engineer , you're going to get more specialized by design . And if you're an engineer , you're going to get more specialized by design and you're either going to remain an individual contributor and sort of reach the apex , the zenith of that role , or you're going to become a people manager . And I would look at the consulting engineer and the architect those two types of titles as being maybe even more the consulting engineer and less the architect , because they generally are more specialized as one of the last individual contributor roles where you're still a generalist . And even within that role you're still going to have people like myself who have a lot of data center experience . There are certainly people on my team who are more routing oriented , routing oriented , but we are oftentimes there to provide that support once the field has reached the we'll say first 60 to 90 minutes worth of narrative , sales and baseline engineering work we've asked them to do and provide , and sometimes we'll get pulled in early because they'll see the writing on the wall and they want that expertise early on .

Speaker 3 9:21

You only make a first impression once , obviously , and you want it to be the right impression so you might have a specialist there .

Speaker 3 9:29

It also depends on the types of customers that you're servicing , the needs that they have , and even the title itself can vary . Having recently been at Juniper and now at Nokia , the role of consulting engineer could have two meanings . It was a title that was afforded to a particular pay grade , which it was just an abstraction . If you were called a consulting engineer , it meant that you were this specific grade , and if you were called a consulting engineer in your business card , it could mean any number of other things , and the way consulting engineer was defined there is different than the way it's defined here . So we can make broad statements about what it means , but it is going to be up to the individual that's pursuing these opportunities the hiring manager and whatever management structures wrapped around the role that that pursuing these opportunities , the hiring manager , whatever management structures wrapped around the role that that person might fit into , to define what the responsibilities of that person are going to be .

Speaker 1 10:30

I like what you said about the first 60 to 90 minutes of narrative might be more of an . Scam side of the house , where then the CE comes in . That kind of aligns with what Jared said about high-level product value props and then getting into the deeper , I guess , technical dives . So this is a pre-sales role , correct ? This is ?

Speaker 3 11:53

Post-sales for this opportunity is pre-sales for the next one , right ? So it is intended to be that way , I think .

Speaker 2 12:01

Yeah , I would agree with that , it's . I would say that it's uh , I would say that it's 70 , I would say that it's 60 to 75% uh , pre-sales , and then you know , obviously after the sale . Then we help support , um , cause we have a little bit , we have a little bit deeper uh , you know expertise . So RSE will typically manage on the on the post-sale side as well , but we'll help them after the sale as well , right , if they need that , because we also are on the sales side . So we need to help maintain the relationship with the customer , make sure that everything works properly , not just theoretically , but in practice as well .

Speaker 3 12:36

Well , and let's be honest too . Once a customer gets your contact information , they're going to reach out to you . So part of that other 30% is and we're going to take that call .

Speaker 3 12:49

That's always , you know it's if you're kind of moving from this place . If we want everybody's life to be better , make things easier , reduce friction , then yeah , we take the call , and if we need to push them into a different workflow , we do . But that's , you know it was . We take the call , and if we need to push them into a different workflow , we do . But that was a good explanation , jared .

Speaker 1 13:07

So I think what's interesting to me is that you two have different backgrounds coming into this role . So what's the running joke in networking ? It depends , right . It's so hard to give one answer to anything really . But what skills and qualifications might be required to become a CE in an organization ? Technical chops , soft skills , things like that . So maybe this is a good time just to quickly touch on your different

Different Paths to Becoming a CE

Speaker 1 13:37

backgrounds . So , like Jared , you come in kind of a different way . I've come into , I've come in as a traditional network engineer who managed data centers , blah , blah , blah , worked my way through those ranks to Colin's point I was probably going the architect route , you know and then wound up at a vendor . So how did you come to be a CE ? Were you a network engineer by trade ?

Speaker 2 13:58

Yeah , no See , that's a typical right , andy . So the way that you were talking about it , that's how a lot of people evolve into the vendor side . My case is really , I would say , more unique . I didn't have any networking experience at all . The only thing close to it was that my dad was . You know , my dad is in networking .

Speaker 2 14:21

But beside that , I mean , you know , I didn't really , when people say the term networking , I thought it just meant social networking , like you know . I thought it just meant , like you and I talking to each other , getting to meet each other . Like I didn't understand really what the internet was beside when I needed wifi access to play call of duty . So I , you know , like my , my level of my my , so you know , like my , my level of my level of understanding and experience when it came to knowing , you know , networking and what it is was very minimal .

Speaker 2 14:50

So for me , I was able to join right out of college . So right as soon as I graduated , I was able to join a group called Nifty , which is like stands for Network Infrastructure , future Technological Innovators , super long term . But it was a great program and so there were 11 of us that joined . There was me and another and another , another person who joined and like this specific role as an IP consulting engineer , cause , like I said earlier , nokia is really big , so there was a lot of roles that were filled right .

Speaker 1 15:15

So hold on quick pause . So your major was in what ? Computer science ?

Speaker 2 15:18

I'm guessing yeah , it was computer science major in college okay , is the nifty program part of where you work ?

Speaker 1 15:24

is it an ? Is that a nokia branded thing ?

Speaker 2 15:27

yeah , yeah so it was specifically for our network infrastructure , uh business , uh business group .

Speaker 1 15:34

So they covered roles for ip , for optical and for uh and for fixed networks so they bring in college grads to kind of teach them the ropes , like hey , this is a zero to hero yeah , exactly yeah .

Speaker 2 15:46

The idea is that you know it . It takes a lot longer and and what we're seeing now is that , in comparison to you know , maybe when you know , maybe when you all were in college , is that there is no information systems degree anymore , really , like that's not a popular thing . Um , now , what the popular thing is is what I did , which was computer science , programming , ai , ml . I took those classes in college and mostly what we've seen is that , at least what I've seen is that everything's moved up the stack , from focusing on layer two , layer three , to now or layer four , to now focusing on layer seven in college . So I understood how to create a model , an ai model , but I didn't understand the networking that went behind it to actually make it happen .

Speaker 1 16:29

So for me it was a complete change of , you know , a thought process which seems common , the more people I've spoken to on the show over the past year or two . Like everybody wants to go into ai and cyber I mean even at the nugs that I participate in , where it seems like networking is just less and less attractive or sexy , right Like nobody or called out by name , the roads right .

Speaker 3 16:51

I mean , it's not so much networking's gone away . It obviously hasn't . We're having this conversation conversation . The role of it , the role it plays in a network , is now being abstracted by the tooling that sits over the top of it , which is good , because networks don't exist for their own sake . Networks exist to interconnect the things that connect to the network , and I believe the evolution is starting as just the pull along effect of technology and the skill base , catching up with the role of the network and how we can abstract its management towards the operations versus , just like these individual boxes we have to log into manually .

Speaker 1 17:32

Jared , I'm guessing that your dad , who works where you work , turned you on to the program , like , hey , there's this thing for grads . You should check it out . Like , how did you find out about this program , or it ?

Speaker 2 17:42

yeah , yeah , I mean , I had , you know , I I was applying for a while . I graduated in uh in 2023 , so I , I was , I was applying for a while , kind of . John mark was down a bit and he pointed me and said , hey , you know , I saw this , uh , I saw this kind of really interesting posting and sent it my way . Um , I I applied to it not really thinking anything of it . To be honest , when I saw Nokia , I did what everybody else thought , what everybody else thinks , and I was like , oh , the phone company got to learn about phones now . So , yeah , it was a good opportunity . So far , I mean , I will say I need to speak on it a little bit before Colin gives his side .

Speaker 2 18:52

I had pretty much when I came on , there were no expectations for me to understand and be in the IP consulting engineering role right away .

Speaker 2 19:00

They understood that I needed to learn and get up to speed , especially not having any experience with networking . So I had a good , you know about year buffer before I got , you know , placed in , placed in the team with Colin and Igor who who's you know , one of our other colleagues to learn , you know , to learn how my own experiences , and that meant , like you know protocols , like learning BGP , learning ISIS , you know all the basic , fundamental things that you would get exposed to like in , you know , in operations , in the NOC right , and so learning , learning it from a different perspective , I think , is what Um , and so learning , learning it from a different perspective , I think is what , uh , you know is is . Getting that year buffer was nice . Um so , colin , I mean you had a different experience . I mean you've done this kind of like a little bit more hands-on , a bit more , a bit more Andy's way , Um so I like that Andy's way sounds like a pretty cool dark action flick .

Speaker 3 19:51

Sounds like a pretty cool dark action flick . Yeah , I mean , I've been in this business forever , over 20 years . I started as phone support for Gateway Computers , which Jared , you won't remember because that company was dead before you were old enough to care about a I don't know , I mean somebody . As a young child you might have seen a box that had a design that looked like a Holstein cow on the outside . That would have been a Gateway computer box . That might have been interesting to you at that age .

Speaker 3 20:23

Yeah , I'm in the seat that I'm in not because I went through a technology ROTC program like Jared , which is essentially what those types of college programs are . He got there because there was a very specific lane . I have my role because I had to make a conscious pivot . Let me back up . You're always going to be presented in this industry with the choice to be a more focused individual contributor , like your opportunities for growth if that's something you're interested in , moving up the food chain , so to speak . And I know tons of people that are very happy to be field sellers , and rightly so , because the biggest pay cut I ever took was not leaving the field as an SE and moving into the business into an architect role . So start by understanding how you're going to define your own personal success . That's just before you make any decisions . It's so critical to be honest about what you want and it could just be money , sure For me . I always had the same answer whenever I go into a performance review about what you want , and it could just be money , sure For me . I always had the same answer whenever I go into a performance review about what do I want to be . When I grow up to the point where my bosses stopped asking me and it was always this that I felt like I was successful if I could measure the impact I was having on a business on broader terms . So the next thing that I wanted wasn't a specific role ever , it was always just is what's available to me , something that I can look around and say you know I'm having an impact and it's helping more people ?

Speaker 3 22:01

When you're in a field seller , you're actually working on an account team . You're incredibly important to the book of customers that you have . You're contributing to your team's number in that region that you're in . But that gets abstracted more and more as you move up to the macro business on a global level , right . So me moving into an architecture team from the field in my last job was really about me being able to help more people and , to put a finer point on the money side of that , I went from carrying I think it was like a $12 or $13 million number to carrying a $1 billion number , because essentially I picked up all of North America enterprise sales as a number . So any accelerator tables got , they were just gone . Like I was never . I wasn't making my ability to hit attainment went away , but I was fulfilled and it was satisfying .

Speaker 3 22:57

So I had to start by deciding what you want to do and then , do you want to be an individual contributor or do you want to be a people manager ? Because it's two completely different skill sets that you need to develop . I've been both . I like being an individual contributor . I also find that these types of roles are more immediately impactful . I've got more agency to do things that I want to do , versus if I'm managing people , which I enjoy greatly . It just I don't know . It wasn't the seat that was available at the time when I was making my decisions . You said , andy I have a note here . It says you . You said zero to hero talking about Jared's journey and I wanted to correct you because we're in tech . It's actually just zero to one .

Speaker 2 23:41

You know it's but if we can turn that , zero into a one .

Speaker 3 23:45

We're doing great . So , um , I w , I want to . I want to laugh at the fact that Jared's like you know , you're learning basic stuff like BGP and ISIS . I'm like you know you're learning basic stuff like BGP and ISIS . I'm like , really Like I was learning about the OSI model Like basic . To me was a different conversation , but I'm really fascinated in just how you had you came to this , starting with computer science and programming versus me , which was like learning CLIs and also having to learn all the stuff that's now dead , like EIGRP and frame relay and stuff like that .

Speaker 1 24:19

Oh , my God , they're my two darlings . I love , I love those two technologies , jared . Correct me if I'm wrong , but something I'm hearing in multiple places over the past year or two is there's not that much networking covered in computer science curriculum ? Is that accurate ? Year or two is there's not that much networking covered in computer science curriculum ? Is that accurate ?

Speaker 2 24:36

yeah , no , there's really not . At least , uh , at least at my university there wasn't um . You know like in in our curriculum it was python first . Those were our first two classes . You get pretty proficient with it . Then you do a little bit of java kind of web development . So you learn about , you know um you learn about cicd .

Speaker 2 24:52

Uh , you

Computer Science vs. Networking Skills

Speaker 2 24:53

know . Uh , with you know , you learn about CICD . You know , with web developer tools , so I use , like Eclipse , you know , obviously I use VS Code , that's , that's every , it's every programmer's favorite . You know IDE and you know , I would say like , genuinely , I really didn't learn anything about networking until I went to the front , like until I started working on a front end project with one of my professors my senior year , and at that point the only thing that I had seen was how to kind of deal with the server . Uh , so it wasn't even like real networking , it wasn't really understanding , it was just , uh , it was just , how do I communicate with this , with this server ? And that's still not even you know on on the networking layer , right ? So I wasn't doing any protocol work .

Speaker 2 25:39

I forgot to mention this , andy , but I think the most important thing for me and why I ended up wanting to get into this role and wanting to be in the Nifty group , was because when I looked at the role and I looked at the CE requirements , I always had wanted to do something where I could be technical but I could also use my people skills and I wanted to be able to talk to people every day , but I didn't want to sit in an office and I didn't want to be an account manager and have to talk to people every day , and I wanted there to be days where I could just , you know , work and be a nerd .

Speaker 2 26:06

You know , I feel like I feel like this role really gives you the best of both worlds . I feel like there's days where you know and Colin can definitely talk on this as well and I feel like , andy , even you can too . I know that you're doing your own labbing and you've been having your own fun . Recently We've been talking , you know , going back and forth about learning how to do it . I didn't even know how to SSH before I came to Nokia , and I knew how to do Python , knew how to do Java , I even learned Haskell , which is an old functional programming language . So it yeah , the curriculum's out of whack a little bit , I would say .

Speaker 1 26:36

So I've heard that in a lot of different places , like you know . Oh , why don't we have enough people coming into networking while they're not teaching it , it seems like ? And then what you do , what you are exposed to , is like yeah , well , there's this network thing . Nobody cares about because everything's abstracted , but ooh , let's secure the network with cyber or AI or you know , or whatever it is . And just a quick question when you graduated with a computer science major , what type of jobs were you applying for ? And they said , like the market wasn't great , but it wasn't networking .

Speaker 2 27:01

Oh yeah , I mean , it was anything . It was anything . Software developer .

Speaker 1 27:05

Software dev yeah .

Speaker 2 27:06

Back in front end . Honestly , I was even doing UI and UX jobs too . I was applying for those because I had a little bit of experience with that , but I mean it was across the board , Job market was just not great . But thankfully I ended up getting this program . They took a chance on me and I will say that the most enticing thing that they saw on my resume was that I had experience with AI and ML , which is kind of like right In terms of experience . I took a couple of classes , I built my own models , I got hands-on work with it from the application side and I actually did my presentation when I was . I did a presentation to my interviewers at the time and it ended up being a lot of my managers now and that was one of the biggest things that they saw that I understood the technology . But then they had asked me through it like , okay , so how would this apply to the network , right ? So what do these models do to the network ? And I couldn't answer at the time . I had no idea .

Speaker 1 28:01

There's two things , and then I'll hand it over to Colin , who looks like he has something to say . I like what you said about you're a tech nerd who also likes people , and there are a handful of roles . Again , it pays way less and it's very physical , but I love my time as a cable guy because it is super duper technical . You have to know a ton of very deep technical things , but I have eight jobs a day . I'm going to eight different places and I'm meeting new people and there's different challenges and I really like that person .

Speaker 1 28:27

And when I got on the data center side in production , I'm like , oh , thank God , I don't have to deal with people yelling at me anymore and I relish that . Good , now it's just me and the keyboard . And what's interesting is , after years of doing that five , six years I started to miss the people side . I miss the interactions with people and I really like a couple roles that I've had at vendors . It's very technical , but it's also very communicative what some might call soft skills . The other thing I wanted to ask you and then I'll shut up is you graduated what ? A couple years ago , I guess . When did you graduate college ?

Speaker 2 29:03

Yeah , 2023 .

Speaker 1 29:04

All right , and you've been working a little while . Looking backward , you have a little bit of perspective now . Do you think and I'm not advocating for it , it's just something I've been talking about in different places Do you think we are doing a disservice to the kids in computer science by not teaching networking ? Or has our tooling gotten good enough that we don't really have to teach the networking basics , because we're just going to overlay everything and press the magic button and everything will be fine ?

Speaker 1 29:30

I'm being a little facetious , right , but yeah , that's , that's the extreme end of the right , like , well , we don't have to if we're not teaching computer science majors networking , who are going to go out and build software and systems and e commerce platforms and AI , like I just don't know . As a networking person , my bias is like how dare they ? You have to teach networking . Do you think , think , would you prefer to learn more networking ? Or I mean , it's working out for you , so it's fine . But are we screwing up our industry by not teaching it in computer science ?

Speaker 2 30:00

I guess is the question , in my opinion . Yeah , I think that even now , like the more that I've looked at it , even though we had , you know , that program where we had 11 new grads come in I mean I look around at the industry and I see people who are in my equivalent role , right , all my peers . You know , it's definitely an aging industry and it's a skill set that is needed for us to sustain our society , honestly , and I don't think that it's society in terms of , like the internet , and I don't think that we're at the point where we can just say automation is going to take over everything , because people don't trust automation , right , they don't trust the tools that we create from a software perspective , and I don't blame them , because none of them have really worked to the point that everyone can say , okay , this is the tool that we can go with , right , this works . So I think , genuinely , I also would have loved to understand , like I would have loved to take networking like one course of it in college , just so I can understand , okay , so I understand the application side . I kind of understand that , like you know , my application gets from here to there , but how does that actually happen ?

Speaker 2 31:09

Right , how does you know what is a packet ? What is a frame ? What are you know fiber ? What is a frame ? What are you know fiber ? What is that ? Like light bouncing in a glass tube ? What does that even mean ? Right ? So I feel like actually understanding that and understanding how your information gets from point A to point B would be just . It would be beneficial to everybody who takes a computer science class , because then they can understand the underlay of what they're doing . So I'll leave it with that , but I think that we should take note . I think networking classes should be required for people to take in the future .

Speaker 1 31:44

Fair Kyle .

Speaker 3 31:48

First a minor correction . Jared said fiber in a glass tube . The fiber optics we have are still solid glass on the inside . The light bounces around inside the actual solid glass .

Speaker 2 32:04

Still learning .

Speaker 1 32:06

I think the cladding on the glass . I mean , if we really want to be pedantic about it , there's cladding on the outside that makes it refract back in . But I digress .

Speaker 3 32:13

We can have a whole nother discussion on , like Raleigh scattering and hydroxyl limits and all that . Oh , it's fascinating to see how we optimize the glass that we put in fiber optics and the considerations the Raleigh scattering in particular . That's also the reason why the sky is blue during the day . The sky is blue during the day . So one of the challenges , I think , with having a network anything in a college environment , is that networking isn't really a degree . Networking is a vocational trade .

Speaker 3 32:50

If you look at the first course that any certification program for networking teaches across any vendor , they're all going to be the same Basic OSI model stuff . You're going to learn whatever variation of that stack Mine was please do not touch Steve's pet alligator to remember the different first letters for the different parts of the OSI model . That class is taught in a week . That class is taught in a week and because of that a networking program at a college is going to , you know , maybe a credit . I think that they and I'm not saying that the value isn't there , it's just the value isn't there in a way that's sufficient to maybe I mean .

Speaker 3 33:29

I've seen these courses at the local community colleges and it's like once a week and all that . I think it's important . I think it's important . I think I can understand at least why we don't see people coming out of college with networking . Honestly Jared , the way that you came to this role is far more representative of at least the feeling we all had about where the industry was going , potentially a bit more abstracted from the networking than I might have thought . But if networking is still a yeoman's trade , then you can learn the generalized curriculum that a computer science degree delivers , which is really just a big thick how things work book about just the relationship , just the relationship between you .

Speaker 3 34:15

Know great , it's all ones and zeros .

Speaker 3 34:16

So like , if I feed this information into this system , how is it going to be processing it ?

Speaker 3 34:20

And that information , that kind of like I can learn how the motor works , but I still need to go be trained to be a specialist on specific engines , right , like it takes like four times longer to become a Ferrari certified mechanic than it does to become a CCMP .

Speaker 3 34:37

So , as an example , in terms of like how many hours of training that you have to receive before you can receive the certification .

Speaker 3 34:48

So I think that what you're doing , jared , and where you are right now is where we've all expected the industry to go , and I think also the progression makes sense that you get all that baseline information and the network as a physical representation of where we are today in this industry is sort of secondary to the primary education that you need , the education that I'm sure Andy and I I can at least speak for myself wish we had received . Education that I'm sure Andy and I I can at least speak for myself wish we had received . I mean , I'm happy to have the degree that I have , but now I need to go out and teach myself the stuff that you were taught by others with where the industry is going , then somebody who might have had , like if I were to take myself from 10 years ago a traditional networking experience and plot myself in here , I would have even less of an idea of what the hell I was doing . And that's saying something , considering .

Speaker 2 35:45

I wake up every morning like how did I get here , what's going on , and I think I wanted to add onto that , because I think one of the you know we talked about how it kind of needs to be a requirement at least that's what I said and also Colin was talking about how , you know we're saying a little bit . You know how there should be a little bit more . You know networking in general and that you guys kind of have assumed this . You know , people who are in the industry now have assumed that at least the talent coming out doesn't really have as much experience , and that's , for the most part , really true . I think the nice thing you know about being in a consulting engineering role is that you do get to be , you know , you do get to go out there , you do get to see what's going on in the industry , and I think that you know I went to AutoCon

Career Growth and Autonomy

Speaker 2 36:30

and Colin we were at AutoCon together . You know , andy , you were there at autocon too .

Speaker 2 36:40

I think we might have met each other there for the first time . I don't remember but , um , but yeah . So when we were there we met , you know , we met a few college kids and and they were , uh , you know the event was in denver and we had met some people from , you know the university of colorado , boulder , and you know they were showing us that in a uh , it was a , it was a master's degree that they were working on and it's , honestly , I think it's well known across the US and in the networking industry that you know , professor Levi , I think it's Perigo from you know , uh , you know from from an abstract perspective as well , by creating their own tools and stuff . And I did want to shout them out a little bit because I think that that's something that's super cool and I wish I would have even known about that before I graduated because , honestly , I probably would have just gone and done a master's degree there and then gone and done networking after .

Speaker 2 37:29

So , uh , yeah , I think I think having at least a master's degree like that you know , at a few more colleges would be nice , but I think the visibility of opportunities like that is really low , especially in networking , and Colin mentioned that earlier . Networking has you don't bring up the name . Everyone thinks of it as social networking . It's not . Computer networking is a very it's an unseen term . People don't use it as often I think .

Speaker 3 37:59

Well , and if you want to grow like going the master's route , getting into technology . This is why it's so important to try to understand how you're going to find yourself , fulfillment within the IT space if this is the career path that you decide to take . When I think about what I want to do , there's a split . It's like the technology is great , I like the people stuff , I like the management stuff . If I were to go back to school and get a master's degree right now , it would be in business and finance . It would be a continuation of the degree I already have . Ultimately , if you move farther up in the business and you get closer to the C-suite , everything that you talk about is going to have to be defined within the framework of business outcomes . You have to measure the growth of things , the revenue , the attainment . You have to measure the growth of things , the revenue , the attainment . I'm sure we're going to get to a point later in this discussion where we're talking about folks putting in resumes and applying for these types of positions . I'm going to touch on that again . Then I would be focusing on soft skills , but that's just because I'm looking at a very specific place in the future you can reach the apex of the individual contributor role as well . There's a point where you're not going to be able to be a generalist anymore and by the time you get into a consulting engineer role , you've already got your feet in that pool . The next step , if you move out of this team and onto another team , is , generally speaking , going to be a product line manager , a technical marketing engineer , somebody who's going to be aligned with a specific technology , and then , beyond that , if you decide to build the muscle , you might get into some of the more engineering stuff . But the , frankly , the role of a consulting engineer how it's been defined here where we work and in my previous role , is just an amazing place to be because you do get to touch a lot of the parts of the business . We've talked about a lot of the customer-facing stuff and the field support . We're also this connective tissue between the strategic decisions that are being made that inform products and technologies and features that go into software and the inputs that are coming in from the field , and occupying that space , that interlock space , is a very incredibly important part of what we do . It's also very interesting . It gives you a lot of exposure to kind of the heartbeat of what's going on in the different parts of the business . So this ending up in this role somewhere along your journey , I think , is a good thing , because it gives you a lot of line of sight on all the different things that you could do next .

Speaker 3 40:55

Or you can just stay here . Our boss , jared , and I's boss we have the same boss , which I'll be sure to mention to him that you wish you'd stayed in school and not come right to Nokia to him . I'll let him know , um , that he's been here for like 20 years and recently there was an opening that came up and we all had some sort of this collective anxiety where we would have been really happy for him if he had taken the the role . It would have been a huge promotion , he would have crushed it . But we're also like but also stay here with us please , because he was so awesome and he decided to stay and I say that intentionally . He decided he could have gone and done that . If he just said yeah , I'll do it , boom . There's just no way . He's been here for so long , he's so good , he's so well liked .

Speaker 3 41:39

We ended up with somebody who's good and well liked in the role . It's no problem . But be honest , too , with yourself about what you want to do , because if you find yourself in a place where you're really happy , there might always be a voice in your head that's saying yeah , but if you're not moving forward , if you lose this inertia that you have , you're not succeeding . It's like you can find and define your success wherever you like . So if you find something where you're happy , you're comfortable and you like the people and the culture and everything else around you also , don't be afraid to stay there , and being a consulting engineer is a pretty cool place to stay . I've had this role in one way or another for probably four or five years , and it's just . You get to touch so many different things . It's so neat .

Speaker 2 42:30

I second what the smart guy said , Andy .

Speaker 1 42:35

Totally . We're just about at the end here , so I'm going to ask you guys , I guess , my last question , which is a two parter what is your favorite and least favorite part about the job , or pro and a con , or the thing you love the most and hate the most ? Whatever , give me the two opposite ends of like this part's great and this part stinks . And do you have any parting advice for network operators that are interested in this role , what it sounds like , the cool stuff that they'd be able to do , besides doing what either one of you guys did , which is start at Gateway Computers in the 90s or go to computer science and do an ROTC program ? Best part of the job , worst part of the job and parting advice ?

Speaker 2 43:21

Do you want to go first , Colin ? I'd be happy to go

Pros, Cons, and Advice for Aspiring CEs

Speaker 2 43:23

first . Jared needs a minute .

Speaker 3 43:25

Collective thoughts I'll vamp for a while . We're at the hub of this wheel that is spinning , which means that we get to see a lot of different things . We get to help a lot of people . We also get to define our work , by and large , on our own . There's some high-level expectations that get placed on us and this isn't unique , I think , to our leadership , although we've got a pretty good leader or our company in general , although we got a pretty good leader or our company in general .

Speaker 3 43:57

This position . There is quite a bit of autonomy , but it's it's earned through the all the things you did before it . Uh , least favorite thing and this is just a personal thing for me , um , and it is not , yeah , not a complaint , it's a , it's a me thing um , sometimes I do the autonomy is almost a little bit too much for me . So I will find myself setting up meetings and just there's some anxiety I get in my head .

Speaker 3 44:22

When I was a , I'm like am I doing the right thing ? Is this providing value to people ? Are the things that I want to work on aligned with the priorities of the business ? And it's a lot clearer if you're a field seller what your responsibilities are . You've got a book of customers , you've got a quota that you're carrying , you've got a portfolio of products and just go do the thing . So you do need to possess the tools and the skills within this role to keep yourself busy and make sure that the things that you're busying yourself with are meaningful within the scope of what your responsibilities are . And then , jerry , you can go and then we can get to the advice . Unless you have a long timelines and ambiguity .

Speaker 1 45:09

I think we're the . Yeah , it's , and that's just hit me at vendor . Some people thrive in that and I thrive , but it's , and that's just hit me at vendor .

Speaker 3 45:13

Some people thrive in that and I I thrive , but it's still like I I'll get in my own head about it . And so , like I have 30 different notepad windows open at the same time and you know , click up that I gotta blow the dust .

Speaker 2 45:25

You know my , my actual task tracking tool that I use once a week , you know , just like that jared , yeah , uh , I'll say , uh , it's not necessarily something I dislike , it's something that it's something you have to deal with , um , and particularly because of my I guess situation where I'm very new to networking uh , still very I honestly would consider , you know , almost being in this for two years , still very new . I think the most difficult thing is , like Colin was talking about you know , how we have to understand both the technical and the business side , right , and what we do is it's our products are applied , you know applied business , right . So how can they , how can they use our products , how can they use our services in a way that it boosts their company and their sales and that , you know , they make more revenue , right ? I think that the hardest thing to understand is , you know , understanding every customer's story . Uh , in terms of understanding , like that they'll use some art , what I call like archaic . You know technologies , uh , you know , call like archaic . You know technologies . Uh , you know SNMP , uh , you know , and , um , and you just kind of have to understand , like , why those are rooted in in , you know , in , a customer and how to kind of like talk them out of that , right , and maybe some other .

Speaker 2 46:44

There's so many things that you have to understand . You know , like , even call and talk about frame relay uh , you know , obviously I'm never going to see it in the future , but I still have to understand what it was , and you know , some people grew up . You know , some people have not grew up , but they lived through that . They lived through these technologies and lived through the evolution , Right . So you not only have to understand the now and also the future when you're a CEO , but you also have to understand the past and how to properly communicate with someone , how to get them from the past to maybe the present or maybe in the future , right . So that's the only thing that I would say is like kind of difficult to deal with . The one thing I love , though , is , like colin was saying , is the autonomy of I'm never bored . I there . I I literally could find something new every day , and we talked about this adhd . Pretty sure all three of us here have ad .

Speaker 1 47:32

Does anybody in tech not have it ? It's a thing .

Speaker 2 47:37

Yeah , no , I think the nice thing is that I'm never bored . If I want to learn something and I want to become like a mini expert in it , I can do that , and I can also rely on people like Colin to help me and help teach me something . Right ? I think that I use my team a lot to help pass their knowledge , and I feel like we do that with each other because we're the best resources for each other . Right , we know a lot about you , know our little areas , and Collins taught me so much in different areas . I mean , this guy is a fricking encyclopedia and , andy , you've taught me a lot about a lot . You've taught me a lot about the experience of uh , you know of , of an , of , of an operator Like , we've talked about that a little bit . And you've also told me about . You know how important relationships can be , especially in the networking community , because networking community is very unique , but that's another thing .

Speaker 2 48:22

I'll say it's my , it's tied for number one . I love this community man I have not met . I haven't met too many bad people . I can't even think of them right now . Everyone here has been so supportive and everyone just wants to generally learn . They just want to be nerds together and it's so cool to be part of an industry that everyone wants to be a nerd .

Speaker 1 48:40

Nerds . I want to be respectful of everybody's time and I think we're at time . So where can folks find you two ? If they are an aspiring CE and they want to reach out and get more information and maybe some advice from you , where can they find you ?

Speaker 3 48:55

I'm shutting your wrap up down , I do have a piece of advice Develop your soft skills . You can find me on LinkedIn . I think it's like cdoyle-pdx or something , but if you look for Colin Doyle , nokia , you'll find me . I also have a YouTube channel , but go to LinkedIn and all the stuff you can find .

Speaker 1 49:10

Another networking channel .

Speaker 3 49:12

It is yet another networking channel . Yeah , another number I'm turning on the content hose because I had to do a bunch of internal stuff first , so I'm not getting too bold about pointing people there , because there's really just one silly video and then one less silly video on EVPN .

Speaker 2 49:28

Yeah , you can find me on LinkedIn . My advice is just , if you're somebody who wants to combine both the uh , both your soft skills and the technical side and never be bored also , I mean , you'll be stressed , but you'll never be bored looking at being a CE , it's going to be the best thing that you do . People do this job for 20 , 30 years for a reason , and you get to meet people like Colin and I and Andy . So , um , yeah , I w , I would definitely look into it . Um , linkedin , I have an Instagram . Uh , it's Dova D O V A . If you guys want to , you guys want to say hi . So I'm open to anything . My DMS are open . So thanks for having us on here , andy , appreciate it .

Speaker 3 50:05

Sliding the Jared's DMS , as the kids say he plays rugby , so he can track his various head . Yeah .

Speaker 1 50:12

Yeah , Thanks so much for coming on , guys . This was very insightful for me . Thank you for answering all the questions and giving us some insight into yet another awesome vendor role that you , as a network engineer or operator , can look into . Hit us up , ask questions For all things . Art of NetEng . You can go to our link tree , linktreecom forward slash . Art of Network Engineering . All the things are there , Most notably our Discord server called it's All About the Journey Thousands of people in there helping each other with studying , with problems , and just chatting and lifting each other up day to day saying hi . So if you don't have a community , it's one you can check out . As always , thanks for listening and we'll catch you next time on the Art of Network Engineering podcast . Hey folks , If you like what you heard today , please subscribe engineering podcast .