The Jack of All Trades and the CCNP
I remember when I was younger, I was really good at a few things that could become good career paths. A lady told me that being a jack of all trades is good but it doesn't lead to greatness. I used to think she was wrong. It's wild to me in hindsight how right she was. My journey in IT is proof. From tester to field engineer to more advanced titles and back to field engineer. I've been good. But I have not been great.
I got into IT pretty early in my 20s, but I didn't really dig deep until much later in life. Now, I'm trying to figure out how to niche down in a world that praises me for being a "jack of all trades," and I hate it. It's the hardest box to break out of.
Back in 2011, I got my first real break. One of the test engineers I worked with had a heart attack and had to take time off. He was fine; he was talking trash on the day of his surgery and walking around the hospital by day two post-surgery. However, he couldn't work, which left a temporary but important gap that needed to be filled. That was me. He came back a few weeks later, and they moved me to a different project.
That, however, was the first time I was labeled an "engineer," and it was a great feeling. Although it wouldn't last, it did point me in the right direction. All the jobs after that were a result of me either running away from that direction or failing at trying to go down that path.
It would be another ten years before I found myself in an IT environment as an engineer again, and boy, did it feel good. I learned so much, so fast. I was hired as a glorified service desk tech, but being the only person for a major city’s worth of clients, I became the lead engineer and number two across Houston and Corpus Christi (remotely) before my 90-day probation was up.
There, I really got to delve deep into Microsoft Azure, which made me the cloud engineer. I ran security audits and performed a pen test as well, making me the security engineer. It was fun, even though I was always on call, constantly bouncing between service desk password resets and configuring VPNs to third-party sites and VMs. That’s where the problem became evident: once again, I was doing everything, but I wasn't known for anything.
Now, I'm a field engineer at a different company where I handle mostly on-site issues. I don't get to configure VPNs or do security assessments anymore, which is kind of a bummer. Even here, I'm still not asked to niche down. Knowing Azure comes in handy, but it isn't necessary, and security comes up about as often as time off does. It's more of the same in a way, just less demanding. This has led me to take matters into my own hands.
I'm currently studying for the CCNP, Cisco's enterprise-level networking exam. It's niche enough that I'm happy prepping for it!
However, there is a small part of me that has a bone to pick (what can I say? I am a pessimist by nature), and that is that automation feels like systems engineer work. Don't get me wrong, I know it's not; but waiting so long to pick a path instead of having it chosen for me, only to find I need to learn YAML, feels wrong.
I know that this is the most nitpicky thing, especially since it's automation for networks that grow increasingly more complex by the day. It just feels weird.
However, I am excited because I have learned some cool things that I can try for my own persistent connection to some servers at home. For example, once I get LISP up and running, it could possibly lead to a DDNS setup with my own custom domains. Or, I might even bypass LISP and use automation (“I know, I know”) to connect my home servers to the outside internet by rigging up some type of DDNS monstrosity. At this point, it is all theory, but I can't wait to try it out and document the journey.
I have even seen my studying come in handy, at work. Configuring vlans by best practices and not just because we need them up and running, helping to put us on the path to a loop free network environment. As well as being able to better follow along in conversations because my Network Verbiage is better.
I'm becoming so much better at network engineering. I'm glad that I decided to niche down. Now I just hope it doesn't become another part of the jack of all trades tool bag I have acquired and becomes it's separate tool and quite possibly the one I'm known for.
