00:00
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 Lapteff, and we are joined once again by the one, the only, the amazingly awesome Erica. Is it diet, Rick, D-trick, or should I just say Erica the dev?

00:28
You can say Erica the Dev, but it's Dietrick.  I thought last time we met you said it's like Diet Rick. It is. That's how I explain it. Yeah, because that's how it's, you know, phonetics. But then I introduced you as Erica Dietrick, which isn't accurate.  So much for that. you remembered me? I'll roll with it. So thank you for coming back on. In full transparency with you and our audience, I wanted to have you on as soon as possible because  you're about to have a very big change in your personal life.  And I think there's a baby coming soon. And I'm like, oh, my God.

00:57
We have to follow up with Erica before she gets very busy with baby land. So how are you doing? How are you feeling? What's going on in your in your life? Yeah. Pregnant with first kid that I've nicknamed Baby Dev and she's healthy. I'm healthy. mean, it's pregnancy's been a ride. It's a lot harder than I thought it would be. As I'm sure parenthood, same thing. You know, I'm like, oh, this is easy. No, won't be. You said she. just. Yes, is a she. Yes. Baby girl. So, yeah. Congratulations.

01:26
We're super stoked and, uh, know, same sense of urgency. If nothing puts you into a sense of urgency, like, oh, I'm about to shoot out a child. So  the main thing I wanted to talk to you about,  um, and we can talk about anything, right. But your course that you've been working on the learn to code,  what's it called? Learn to code with AI for network engineers, something along those lines, right?  Um, it's very much resonated with me and where I am in my life and in my career.  Um, you said, so you were on the show back in April.

01:55
I believe. you had just, when I meet people that say the things I've been thinking forever or for years and just you're able to put it in a way that makes so much sense to me. I'm like, yes, because I always think my experience is unique and like, oh, this is hard and I must not be smart enough. like, however we internalize these experiences. And, know, when you said things like, you know, we don't teach coding well and devs are taught development, but nothing about networking. And then the networkers feel left out and kind of.

02:25
I don't know better term for but like redheaded stepchild. like, just, you know, make the network work dummy. like, and,  and  it just resonated so much. And when you said that the industry really isn't great at teaching development in general, let alone to network engineers who aren't really  in that world or, you know, have that context, then you came out with this whole awesome free, you know, video series that you're doing on YouTube. for anybody that missed, I guess the April episode, um,

02:54
Let's go quickly over that. Like where are you at with the series? How many videos do you have out for somebody who's who's new to this? Because I am on a war path. I am on a life mission to bring the fellow traditional network operators or the CLI lifers as I call them with me along on this journey. Now I will say it's a painful.  It's a painful journey. I'm struggling. I'm uncomfortable. I don't like it. I'm doing public study streams and just failing in public. But

03:24
It's partly inspired by you, also my friend Lexi. The courses, not yours, but most of the courses, if not all of them that I take, they're too slick, they're too fast, and I get lost so quickly that I'm like, I feel like, okay, this isn't for me, I'm not smart enough to do this. Yours, I'm about 30 % through, and I've been trying to get through them, and I'm just, I guess, not prioritizing it well enough, but I never feel that way with yours.

03:52
That's lot of words to say. Tell us about the course. What is it, what it's about and what do you have planned moving forward? And I mean, talking about me being able to put into words what you've been feeling, I don't think it's like some magical intuition I had just being at Cisco, right? You hear things constantly and it was the same story over and over again about these beliefs that network engineers had about coding or how the things they've tried and why it wasn't working or hey, I just don't have freaking time to do this. So this course was actually something that I ideated at Cisco because

04:22
uh To be honest, you have to include AI in some way and I wanted it to be useful, right? Well, maybe we can use AI to make it faster and easier for network engineers to learn to code. That seems relevant. Can I ask you a question? Yeah, yeah. So you said you were hearing feedback like I was saying. So like, was this why you were intact? People calling in was this people you worked with? Just any network engineer you ran into had this sentiment? This was at DevNet like.

04:47
Online, cause I'm on social media and I stalk people and at Cisco live conferences, tack, we didn't really deal with automation cases too much, but. when you were with DevNet and I guess you were trying to spread the word, the feedback you would get from people like me was everything you just said. Right. mean, because automation has been around a while and adoption rates are  in my opinion, lower than they should be. And it's kind of like, why is that? So this course, um it was something I thought I was going get done in February and that's a whole long story. And then I.

05:17
quit and I'm like, you know, I still want to deliver on this promise because I built this community. Everybody really wanted it who I'd talked to. And so I'm putting it out there and then I get pregnant and you know, shit kind of hits the fan once again. So it's December now finally putting out the last video tonight. And, um, Is that the 10th one? Cause I think there was nine up last time. Oh my gosh. I don't know the exact number. Okay. That's about right. So there's three levels to it.

05:44
Kind of the gist of it is that we all want to use AI to make things easier, but we need to know how to think, we need to actually understand what we're doing and like, what is the balance? So this level one course is like, hey, this is just kind of like,  think we talked about previously or in our show notes, exposure therapy, right? Exposing you to the way that you should be thinking programmatically, logically as a developer or automator. And then I'm going to teach you how to use AI to learn because it's a great learning tool. You know, it's not...

06:13
this like extremist, amazing or awful thing in our lives, in my opinion. So is nuance. And then the third level of the course, I'm going to teach you how you can realistically generate code and not in a way that's going to like rot your brain. It's just like the tedium, know? You hooked me right away with like, think like a developer, like even the mindset. And you would mention that in the last episode you were on. I never even  knowing that it's a completely different mindset and way of thinking. I think you've even gotten to like some brain science, like different areas of our brain that we might not be getting used to. Like I just like everything you say in these. m

06:43
It feels  inclusive is the wrong word, but it's the opposite experience of what I get with all the other stuff. Like, oh yeah, this is different. This is weird. I don't get it. And  how did the industry like, I don't know how that work on automation has been around 10 years, maybe let's just pick like a number. Like I'm amazed that what you're creating hasn't existed. Like,  right. Oh gosh. You know what I mean? Like it's how can that gap exist that you're now finally filling?

07:12
for somebody like me and hopefully all these other folks like me that can access this material  in a way that doesn't feel so foreign and weird. And like you had said something and I wrote it down, we're asking network engineers to learn a whole new skillset and still be responsible for uptime, right? Like I was telling you right before we started recording, I'm not in production anymore, but just to find the time to learn these skills while I'm still quote unquote, keeping the lights on at my day job and all the other stuff with family and stuff, finding the time.

07:41
I have always found to be really difficult. What I love is that you're keeping these relatively short, you know, maybe 10 minute video. Yeah, yeah. But there's a lot of material in there. And I love that you got like into the psychology walk me through the setup phase. So I really love what you're doing. So was this level one like these first 10? I guess this is level one that you're calling. is before AI. So and you know,

08:03
You know, I've already learned so much from the process and, I'm a one woman show, just kind of experimenting, right? So I'm sure there's going to be a lot that's going to have to change in future iterations, but the feedback has been interesting. It's been very positive for the most part, but people are like, but I didn't get this one part that you went over or what was that called again? And, you know, I try to reassure people, this is just teaching you how to think. Like, I'm not going over things you need to memorize for the most part right now.

08:28
That's a good point. Like, do you have a community or a Discord server? Is there a feedback loop you have? Like, are there any ancillary books you recommend if people do have like questions or whatever? Like, you're not going to be available 24 seven, not charging for this, right? Like, so how should people supplement or fill in fill in the blanks? I wonder. So my favorite Python course, which this is not network animation specific, but best one that I think has been taught is the modern Python boot camp by Colt Steel on Udemy.

08:55
It's hands on. He's a good teacher, laid back. Obviously there's other network automation specific resources, but  that's kind of where the AI component comes in. Because realistically, if you know what to expect out of a programming language and you know what kind of questions to ask, AI kind of takes care of all that for you, which is kind of why I'm not wasting a bunch of time. mean, every single topic I'm going over could be a course in university. A lot of it is.  And that's boring.

09:22
It's too much information to take in before you're even really coding. How are you going to weave in  AI? And where this is coming from is, you know, I think I've said this before either to you or publicly, but I've had people tell me I'm wasting my time learning programmatic thinking Python because I could just vibe code.  I'm going to give you an example that I wasn't even planning on talking about. yesterday to prep for this interview, I was trying to pull all of your transcripts off of your YouTube.

09:51
Videos I was going to pull them in, put them in chat, GPT say, hey, you give me a summary, write an outline, you know, for the show we're going to do because I want to talk about these videos.  I spent at least 45 minutes  fighting with a Python script chat. GPT gave me this library didn't work. This YouTube API was old. This version of Python. And I guess what I'm trying to say is like vibe coding to me is what I did yesterday, which is, I'm trying to do a thing. It creates code. I do the thing. It doesn't work. I give the response to it. tells me.

10:20
but it kept telling me over and over again, like, oh yes, I see what happened. Now it'll work. And it didn't. And it's like, ah, we're almost there. So for 45 minutes,  I think I finally got it to work. like, so for me to take 45 minutes of my life to pull nine transcripts, like I could have done it faster manually. So I kind of just got in the weeds of my own head, you know, circling back to, guess, AI. So vibe coding, I don't love because I haven't figured it out yet and it seems very time.

10:48
Intensive Dwan Lightfoot also said recently which I really loved he's like you can vibe code But when you get code back that doesn't work, which is what happened to me yesterday I have no idea why it doesn't work So now I'm dependent on AI to tell me why it doesn't work which may or may not fix it or may or may not take an hour to finally iterate to where we need like I don't know why pulling transcripts off of a public

11:09
channel should take me 45 minutes, but that's how long it took me to vibe code it. So I say all that to say, I'm assuming you don't love vibe coding and I'm wondering how you're going to pull in AI into the course. So what do you mean by like AI in the next round? Vibe coding, the original definition has kind of been skewed. People argue with me about this online, but I'm like, this is what it is people. So, so vibe coding was created by someone at OpenAI who basically wanted to one shot prompt and create things, right? And

11:35
you whatever, it was based on vibes. Now it seems to be people are using that term just for using AI while coding. And that's a terrible way to not distinguish between the two because software developers are all using AI. Like it's a requirement a lot of times in their jobs already  to have a certain percentage of generated code.  And that's a very different story. Someone who knows what they're doing versus doesn't. And I'm sure like from a network engineering perspective, you know, you can kind of imagine some of the perils of somebody who doesn't know.

12:04
a thing about networking just kind of one shot prompting,  you know, configuring devices or troubleshooting things or whatever. something about it before. And when we talked last time, I think you're like coding as a language like anything else. And if you can learn English or Spanish, you can learn coding. But  for me to go and chat GPT, ask it to give me a paragraph in French and then try to speak to someone in France. I'm going to sound probably like a dummy because I don't understand what it's giving me. Yeah. And I'm just reading it back. So, yeah, like to your point, I can't imagine.

12:34
Being a dev understanding the stuff, sure, me who doesn't, I'm just copying and pasting garbage  and if it works eventually, it's kind of a miracle. It's the  ability to think, right? mean, know, ChatGPT can probably give you correct commands, you know, for certain things, right? But it doesn't, it can't tell you what you should be doing, right? It really oversimplifies all our jobs as if all of us engineers are dummies.

12:58
So for network engineer, vibe coding, wouldn't recommend, I'm guessing, right? Like we're just going to do a hot take here. Like, no. And I know that it's really popular amongst network engineers. I see everybody being like, oh, but you know, I'm, learning and I'm creating all this cool stuff. And I, you know, I hesitate, you know, it's more of a lucky or a cool party trick, but you're empowering yourself to have a skill. I not feel like I was learning yesterday. It was like a hundred and something lines of code that I didn't understand that I just kept not.

13:25
having work and then asking chat GPT to fix it for me. I'm sure there's a way like my buddy Jeff's a big vibe coder, but this dude's been coding in one way or another for like the past two decades. So like he has a much  stronger foundation  than me who's like, what the hell is all this and why isn't it?  okay, vibe coding is garbage for most of us.  If you don't like troubleshooting your code, I think that's the boring part. Who wants to just sit there fixing their code? It's more fun to build it, right?

13:53
So you're letting chat-shippy-tea or whatever your AI is do the fun part and you spend hours and hours doing like the grueling part. So the fun part is writing it and building it? Yeah, I I haven't gotten there yet.  Somebody told me once I get to functions, I'll be having more fun that it kind of  unlocks something.  So that's what I'm trying to get to. I'm looking at the book over here, Python Crash Course, and I'm also looking through your videos here and I see that functions is the fifth. And I think in your variables, which is the third video.

14:22
I'm chugging along slowly but surely, and I'm hoping to get to functions because I'm told once I get functions, it kind of unlocks and gets more exciting where right now I'm just kind of like rote memorization. So I'm almost at functions.  It's happening. So how are you going to pull AI?  I know I keep pulling you off track here, but how are you going to pull AI into the course and not vibe code? So you can use AI intelligently to just...

14:48
speed things up and again to learn, right? I mean, it's basically Google on steroids. So why not? Like software engineers Google all the time, even in their professional jobs. It's just how it is. level two, I've got a topic list and I'm still guiding people. Like you're not going to just willy-nilly learn on your own. I'm gonna tell you what you should be learning in what order and I'm gonna basically provide prompt guidance and teach you how to use AI to learn that.

15:16
Um, so I become more of an AI guide at that point, if that makes any sense.  And I could just teach it to you. But the point is that you're going to learn it faster by having AI. And also you're going to have the skill to use AI as a learning tool and as a coding assistant.  have level two,  the scaffolding done yet? Like, do you have an idea of what you're going to cover in the next level? Yeah, I have like the content.

15:39
Table of contents agenda, whatever. Can you, can you give us a sneak peek into your brain of like, what's going to be in level two? So for level one, it looks like you go through the, you know, mindset, setting up your environment variables, functions, loops,  data structures, debugger libraries, and API calls. And that all pretty much aligns, I think with the other stuff like the, makes a lot of sense to me how you're building that foundation. These are good things to know before you move forward.  What's coming on level two.

16:05
I think level two is the level that network engineers are going be more excited about because it's very hard to practically apply coding to network engineering when you know almost nothing. That very beginning stuff, it's hard to get through it otherwise. And I did my best, but ah level two is like, okay, in level one, we learn what a library is. We conceptually understand how to find them, install them, use them. But level two...

16:31
We're going to use AI to learn network engineering libraries. Like you're going to rapidly learn these libraries that I guide you through because you understand libraries inherently in general. uh know, that's a common mistake I see in things that are taught is people who like deep dive into things like the PIAT library. And it's like,  you know, that's fine. That's, that's good. But you know, what happens when libraries change or new library comes on the scene? You need to understand how to just use a library.  only library I know is Netmeco and it's only because.

17:01
The course that I started to take  from Dawn Lightfoot a while back, was to  SSH into a router and a showman, right? I did like a show version. But I mean, I don't think I could tell you what a library is, but I know it's something I think I imported into Python that does a thing, and that MECO SSH is for you. Does that sound kind of accurate? I mean, that's all true. That's all true.

17:22
Do libraries create functions in Python that allows it to do things that it can't natively do? Yeah, so libraries are code that someone else wrote and made publicly available so that you don't have to write it yourself. So people write libraries for certain purposes, like working with networking devices or making API calls or I don't know, anything really. You install it and use it and use the functionality that they've built into it for you. What all I've done is logged into a, I've had Python SSH into a device and then show a show of error and

17:52
It's so sad probably how exciting that was for me. Sad because like, look at this. But something happened. Like, I think, and that's what reminded me when you said like level two, it would be more like interesting for network engineers. Like once I could do something with it and like, Oh my God. Cause it's the first time I ever logged into a device and did something not in the CLI line by line. just attended auto con and I took, um, GnmIC. I always get

18:18
Yeah, yeah. I'm messed up, but I learned how to make API calls with GMIC and change like empty settings and different settings on interfaces. Again, this was the second time in my life I've programmatically like logged into a device and change stuff. So to me, but I was like, oh my God. Well, because I've never done that. And it wasn't that bad. I mean, yes, I'm copying, pasting code that they gave me, but  oh, OK, this is a different way I could programmatically interface with like networking equipment, which I think is what we're trying to get network engineers to like guys, it doesn't have to be.

18:48
You know, in the CLI with notepad plus plus copying and pasting, there's other ways.  love I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm honestly excited about learning automation, but I'm also still intimidated and I'm still not sure if I can do it. And like, it's, it's so funny. I'm like, Oh, I got to win. Then I'm like, Oh God, there's so much more to learn, but I can do it.  I'm busy. how I know that you're actually learning it because that's exactly how it feels. There's like a meme online about like.

19:12
God level feelings, valley of despair, and it's just roller coaster.  that's really the hard thing with teaching coding in general too, right? There's so many little things you have to know before you can literally do  anything that isn't just one plus one.  And honestly, in the future, I would love to have gamified labs where most of that crap's set up and you just get to do one little thing and see the results so that you get that feeling early on of, wow, I did something.

19:41
Cool, right? But in videos, it's kind of hard to do. Well, even in networking, it's not that dissimilar. Like, you have to learn so many things before you can actually do anything. You know, you might spend weeks or months on subnetting and encapsulation. you're exactly right, though, because when I came to Cisco and, had no background and I was just  wham-bam studying for my CCNA, I don't know. It's just a bunch of abstract stuff where you're like, I don't know. It's unmotivating when you're just memorizing things.

20:08
But you have to, guess, build that foundation and get enough context in the environment. You know, before you can put a configuration on an interface and put an IP address and get a routing protocol on it, you have to understand an IP address. have to understand what it's doing. You have to understand what the subnet means. And that's a bunch of other stuff. I mean, I guess what I'm trying to get at is like, if you can go through all that and networking and learn all the fundamentals to eventually put them together and do a thing. Programming isn't that different, although it feels so different. was just on, I think it's coming out tomorrow, but I was on heavy networking.

20:38
with the pack of pushers folks and Drew had asked, you know, this is what I'm saying. Like, well, if you can do the CLI, you know, there's a lot of programmatic thinking there and logic, like is programming that much different? It is and it's not. And I can't really explain why. Like it's such a weird head thing. Like, yes, they're tangential, but they also feel so different. And I still.

21:01
don't know why. Like, I mean, you know both worlds, right? The programming and networking. do, but I think- Why does programming feel so weird? you know what I mean? They should it's because you your brain differently. That's still my theory, but I don't know too many people who are like equally skilled at networking and coding. I feel like people kind of lean one way the other, and I'm obviously more on the coding side. Well, I think the people that are good at both-

21:27
And maybe it's just a bias of mine, but they were computer science majors who learned all the coding. And then they come upon networking, which  I'm assuming is easier than learning 14 programming languages. Like, Oh, this is like, okay, I see it makes sense. And then they can marry the two where for me,  it was just a different experience. Computer science wasn't accessible. So I got into networking because the computer science stuff was breaking my brain, but now here we all are in the industry is like, you got to learn the thing.  And.

21:56
You know, we, don't remember if we talked about this last time, but like when I got laid off and I couldn't get a job and like, it was because all the networking jobs had fundamental programming requirements in them. Like even at vendor roles, like, you want to be a product manager somewhere? Well, you better know some coding. I'm like, how the hell did Python enter every network job description  there is now, if you look in the roadmaps for the certifications and stuff, it's all there. So I think the things I was avoiding and hiding from just.

22:27
finally  became,  you know, everywhere omnipresent and all the jobs and all the job descriptions. I would be interested in how much automation is actually going on though, or if it's just a wish list like every other tech job, you know what I mean? I don't think much is happening if you look at the data and what the network automation forum people say and like the Gartner like it. So, you know, how does this all work? Right? Like you look at the certifications that people have to get for jobs and stuff. And  I think that if they're good, they're aligned with what the business wants and the business

22:57
wants automation for obvious or not so obvious reasons. So they push it down to the vendor and say, well, we need automation in the track. So they put it in there, but there's probably a Delta of how long it's going to take all these people to learn enough  programming and automation to be, get good at it better than just pass a certification to then be in a production environment and go, where can I apply this? So hopefully, you know, maybe the ship is turning, the tide is turning. That was my experience looking at jobs.

23:24
two years ago and a year ago was like, oh my God, there's programming everywhere. And people told me in interviews, like, well, you need basic Python knowledge to work here. The job, I might've told you this before, the job I had in FinTech,  I circled back to after like nine months, because I'm like, I need a job. Let me see if I can go back to production. I didn't qualify for it because  Python is now a requirement. I was a senior network engineer helping run their WAN, running huge, like, know, million dollar projects.

23:53
And I couldn't get the old job I had like year, just a few years ago. So my experience was there has been a shift and you got to learn this stuff. That's why I keep talking about this. It's why I'm talking about it everywhere I can and having people like you on, because I want network engineers to hear who listened to this show  that  I believe based on my experience  and what I might hear behind closed doors at different places, like you have to learn at least the fundamentals  of programming because  I believe

24:23
There's a fair amount of disruption on the horizon with all the AI stuff. And if you don't even know programming, like how many layers of technology do want to be behind on? Right? Right. Right. You don't know programming. You don't know AI. Like how are you going to get a job? I know route switch. I always thought route switch was the job and it was enough. It might've been enough when I got in in 2012. I don't think going into 2026 now.

24:50
If you just look at the job descriptions or talk to people in business who are hiring networking teams like. It's such a challenge to be in the tech industry right now, having to have like 60 skills to even be relevant. You know, I feel that too. you know what's really terrible? cares. That's what sucks. Like really, that was my whole pushback is like I have to I have to work five minutes, when there's a week and learn programming and still make the one salary that I made without programming. And I thought if I yelled publicly enough about it.

25:19
that somebody would care. And then I got laid off, couldn't find work for a year. Nobody cared. That's what I mean by nobody cared. And until I embraced automation out of desperation and then doors started to open again, again, like this just one person's experience. I don't know how many other people out there might be out of work and struggling. And like, if they are also resisting all this automation stuff that all the businesses are requiring, I just hope that we're all kind of, if it's true,  I hope people are aware of it.

25:48
and they can skill up before the bad thing happens,  right? Because if there's a person like you who knows networking and programmatic thinking and a person like me a year ago who doesn't know any of that because it's not fair, I don't wanna,  The business is gonna choose you because you have a more varied skillset and you can be more efficient with your I don't know, my networking is pretty rusty, I'm not gonna lie. I don't know if you'll excuse me,  but  to your point too, I mean that.

26:16
I think you asked like how what I'm doing is different and like why it hasn't existed. I mean, so  two things, right? So I think network engineers need to know way less theory, right? I mean, you can always dive deep. Like if you really fall in love with coding, you can go deep or you can take a computer science course, but on a practical level, like you just need to know how to do certain shit. And that's what I've really tried to siphon out  or whatever, um, choose for. But also from the developer perspective, right? Like developers, we get this.

26:45
nice education in coding in university. However, it's the elitism, right? It's this, well, you have to explain it this perfect way and include every single detail. And then if they don't immediately pick it up, they're just not born for this. I'm just like, fuck all that. uh So  I'm so tired of that. There seems to be a fair bit of that, right? Like,  yeah,  there seems to be this,  you know, it's almost like not networking people so much, but the devs are just.

27:13
looking down their nose at the non-devs like, you are not gifted by the thing I have. You know what mean? They act like they've got like God's like magic paintbrush or something. Like you can see a little bit of it in tech in general, but it's way worse amongst developers. I'm not even very accepted among them. That's why I'm just like, I'm burning it to the ground. Like, no, everyone can learn how to code. It's not that Water bus. Yes.

27:38
So, you know, I might not be super successful the first time. It might take a few iterations, but I'm pretty dedicated to the cause. So I know that it's getting late and you have to go to bed soon. So, um, I love what you're doing with your content. Please keep making it even when baby dev comes. Cause anything I can do to help you, if you need a dumb dumb to get on and try a thing and make a fool out of himself, that's my jam before we wrap, guess, I just want to ask, uh, quickly about how's your journey going as a full-time content creator?

28:08
Right? You  had more courage than I would have had. I don't know the details and I don't need to, but you worked at a huge place  and then you didn't work at a huge place. And then you went on your own. Cause I remember when you, when I saw that announcement, I'm like, holy crap. Whoa, that's like really,  uh, brave because for me it's like, well, if I work at the big place and I have the money and the, the 401k, you know, like I feel there's some kind of weird comfort working for.

28:37
a huge corporation that may or may not see me as a number, but at least I feel like I got a thing.  kind of right. But you're like, I'm going to create content and you're also creating free content. So  how is your journey going from like corporate, you know, dev queen to like now I'm a professional content creator because it can't be an easy journey, I'm guessing. Right. It's not easy. It is very rewarding. I'm a lot happier. oh

29:03
So there's that, what people don't see on the backend is that my content is actually a funnel to making money. So I put content out for free. try to benefit the community and that's people get to know me and my skills. Then people hire me to do like sponsored posts, to do freelance development. I had to stop like taking actual contracts just recently cause I'm slowing down. eh

29:23
But yeah, I was surprised by the reception. mean, I'm kind of a ballsy person. I don't know. It's harder for me to work in corporate and keep my mouth shut than it is to take the risk. That's just my personality. So I put it out there, but I was super happy about the response. You know, I put in the work, I built relationships and the contracts came immediately. I'm glad that work is funneling through that. It just reminded me of,  oh,  what's his name? It escapes me. But.

29:49
There's a gentleman we had on and he uses his YouTube channel, creating content for free, quote unquote, right? Like he leads with value. That was his whole thing. God,  I can't believe I can't think of his name. I'm sorry, dude. uh But the same thing, that's basically his sales funnel. People discover him there and then hire him to do things, right? So I've never done that, but it seems like a really cool like marketing slash advertising way to, you know.

30:15
create a sales funnel for yourself. know, it's just, don't know. And I mean, to be honest, I'm doing what I wanted to do at my previous job already. Like this is the value I wanted to bring. And I wish I could have, I would have rather done it under the veil of stability and whatever, but, I don't know. It feels meaningful. It's been fun, it's working out like creating content for the community and leading with value, I guess is giving you the ability to pay the bills.

30:42
Yeah. And I mean, eventually I will need to charge for some things, but I pretty strongly believe in like beginner content being free. I don't believe in charging an arm and a leg for that. I think there's other ways to go about making money and I hope that I get sponsors, you know, I hope that the people love it and companies pay me, not people who need money, not to spend their money. Last question. Yeah. Your life is about to change in the most beautiful way. do you have any

31:12
thoughts,  insights, advice. So  I know that for me,  getting married, starting a family, it was very difficult for me to navigate  a career and family. There's some quote out there from somebody like the finest line anybody will ever walk is between career and family. So I know for me, when our son was born, I was commuting three hours a day in and out of the city for this job, which was a great job, but it was a huge pay bump and it was more responsibility.

31:41
I wouldn't see him most mornings, which sucked because he was still sleeping. And I'd get him for about 40 minutes at night. By the time I'd walk in, we'd eat dinner, I'd give him a bath, and then he'd go down. like, for my career, I paid that price early on, like, I'm not going to get to spend time with my best buddy in the whole wide world as much as I'd like.  because I got to go  work. So I guess you'll have more freedom working from home being content creator, which is like awesome. But it's such a silly question to ask now. I should probably ask you a year from now. But

32:09
Do you have any feelings about a career woman who's about to have a baby, which is going to change how much time you have to devote to things like any kind of thoughts on how you're going to navigate that? It is a challenge.  I think that we are not prepared or informed in any way and you just feel like you have to choose.  Um, so that is part of why I started a business because again,  same thing with business. might take a few iterations to get it right, but I realized pretty quickly that.

32:35
I was not going to be able to hold most corporate tech jobs, at least that I would want to work, and to be healthy enough or have the time or whatever, any of it, to be pregnant, be a mom. So yeah, I know a lot of people aren't willing to accept that risk, but I  do kind of think that the workplace isn't made physiologically  for women who want to have kids.  And I feel like that's kind of the best option out there is to make your own path. I think I will have more advice as time goes on. It's kind of a side quest. I'm trying to pave a path for...

33:04
Well, it's not quite fair to ask you that question now, but I really love your answer that I guess part of the benefit of running your own business and being more independent is you do have more freedom of time and where you are and the environment you're in. that's a really good... And it makes you no nonsense.  I  know it seems like it's a lot of time, but when you know that you only have a few hours to do something or a few hours of energy, you get the shit done. You find a way to do it. Erica, I could talk to you forever.

33:33
but I know that I was late getting on here and we gotta get you to bed because  you and Baby Dev need some rest because we're growing a human.  Where can people go to find you? What's the name of YouTube channel? What's the name of the video? And when the heck is the second round of videos coming? YouTube it's at Erica underscore the dev, Erica Dietrich  on LinkedIn.  And the goal is to have the second level out  in.

34:00
May. I am taking a little bit of time off just to recover and I am planning on engaging with the community on level one during that time. I'm not going to go radio silence, but yeah, next level then. So people have time to watch the videos, practice and do some surprise things that I have coming up. Is there anywhere people should reach out to you if they want to chat, ask you questions, say hi, thank you. Is LinkedIn your main jam? Like do you have a communications channel you like? LinkedIn and YouTube, I appreciate praise.

34:29
Comments, feedback.  Like, subscribe, have  a pre-sort. So I love all that. Eventually I do want to do a Discord community or something, but I'm not going be able to maintain it right now. So I'll put that out to the community. If there's a place you want to gather to discuss things, or if anybody wants to volunteer to be a part of these conversations and leave them, contact me. I will also make you a promise, which I've already started to fulfill. As I work through  this Level 1 course,

34:57
I am going to share what I'm learning along the way, probably on LinkedIn. So I think I just pulled something out yesterday about something cool that you taught me. And, know, selfishly for me, if you want to learn something or confirm your learning, you try to teach it, right? So not that, you know, posting something I learned from you on LinkedIn is me teaching, but it makes me process the information again, try to write it in a way. Do I understand enough to communicate it? So I fully intend. You would think...

35:26
that this is some weird sponsorship of like, why does Andy keep talking about this video? But I honestly, truly authentically feel that this  material is a missing link in my educational journey and trying to learn this stuff.  have really, and I mean this in the biggest compliment possible, you have really kind of filled a gap, unlocked a thing. Like I still can't believe at this point in tech and in networking.

35:54
this material doesn't exist. But because I've bought every single coding and Python course there is for network engineers, I know it doesn't exist. You would be a good judge of it, yeah. So thank you for creating it. Thank you so much for coming on. It's always a pleasure to see you. I'm hoping we can have you back next year when you're up for it and energized in another round of things we can talk about. In the meantime, I'm gonna go through these videos. I'm gonna keep sharing what I'm learning online. And we're all gonna learn this stuff together because that is the point of all this is if you're a network engineer,

36:24
and don't understand basic programmatic concepts and a little bit of Python. You are doing yourself a huge disservice in your career and in your  tech life. And Erica is making it way more accessible  than it's been for me in very long time. So Erica, thank you so much for your work. Thanks for coming on. For all things Art of Net Eng, you can check out our Linktree,  Linktree forward slash Art of Net Eng.  There is merch, there is our Discord server.

36:49
What else do we have in there? Erica's episode you can hit from back in uh April. I think it was called,  what was it? Network Engineers versus Developers. Right, it's the battle. why are we battling?  all the good stuff is on our link tree. Thanks so much for joining us and we'll catch you next time on the Art of Network Engineering podcast. Bye.  Hey folks,  if you like what you heard today, please subscribe to our podcast and your favorite pod catcher.

37:15
You can find us on socials at Art of NetEng, and you can visit linktree.com slash artofneteng  for links to all of our content, including the A1 merch store and our virtual community on Discord called It's All About the Journey.  You can see our pretty faces on our YouTube channel named the Art of Network Engineering.  That's youtube.com forward slash artofneteng.  Thanks for listening.