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• #6530 FecoGee Topikgazda

  Új Válasz 2014-05-07 08:50:21 #6530

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  FecoGee

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  Ez egy jó hozzászólás . Bocsánat, kicsit hosszú. De nekem tetszett.

  "[–]DamienStarkCCIE 6 pontok 2 nappal ezelőtt

  A co-worker of mine, in an attempt to be sarcastic and make fun of the change control folks, decided to be extra verbose in his change request. "For removing module, insert #2 phillips head screw-driver, apply 7 ft-lbs of torque to rotate the screw-driver exactly 3.5 turns counter-clockwise" that sort of thing.

  They gave him an award.

  [–]DamienStarkCCIE 42 pontok 2 nappal ezelőtt

  I see the phrase "medium-size" several times in here from the stressed/unhappy guys...

  My view/experience (12 years in networking across four companies and environments) is like this...

  Small companies:

  Generally speaking, at a small company you are "the one IT guy", and thus expected to do everything. Rarely great pay, but because you're not reporting to teams of advanced engineers, nobody really knows what you can and can't do. The expectations are lower, even if they're broad and constant (more desktop support than proper networking). No room for advancement or specialization, but rarely much "mission-critical 80 hour weekend work" either.

  Mid-size companies:

  As you move up to a mid-size company, now you don't have to be "the IT guy", you can be "the network engineer". This is generally an improvement, as you can gain more specialized (and marketable) knowledge/experience, and your responsibilities are clearer.

  But as imp3131 and asdfirl22 both state, being "the one guy" means you're de facto on-call all the time. You have nobody to mentor you, or cover for you, or even just to bounce ideas off of. However, your role is now important enough and your knowledge specialized enough that you are in a position to negotiate for better pay/benefits/respect - but you have to negotiate for it. You can't just wait for your boss to "give you what you deserve"

  Large companies:

  Moving up to a large company (I've worked in three over my career) now you can really specialize. You aren't "the network engineer", you're "the lead guy on the network support team" or "an engineer on the network design team" or "one of the three guys dedicated to the WAN routers".

  This also frequently comes with better benefits and automatically improved pay. If you're an effective negotiator, you could be making more at a mid-size company, but lots of people don't want to be constantly job-searching and negotiating, and the big companies frequently come with standardized pay bands and yearly automatic (if small) raises.

  You may have more paid training and the opportunity to specialize, possibility for advancement. On-call time or weekend work is usually managed in some official way, like comp time or on-call pay. You have others who can cover when you're on PTO, who you can learn from and discuss ideas with. This is is all good stuff. However, it starts to introduce the source of stress which killed my last job for me: bureaucracy.

  The larger the company, the more rules/policies/procedures everyone has to contend with. This can be good - it's where those automatic raises and comp-time/on-call-pay came from - but it can be stifling. By the time you have built a network you're actually proud of, it can be infuriating to have others wrecking it with bad decisions. Worse, Change Control (which was non-existent in the small firm, and a breeze in the mid-size one) is now out-of-control. The tiniest things - fixing a problem with one command-line which would take 30 seconds - now requires 7 pages of documentation, submitted two weeks in advance and approved by a Vice President who defers it to a committee of people who haven't the faintest understanding of networking.

  All of these environments have the potential for stress, but also the potential for great rewards. A good network engineer (CCNP or higher) should be getting paid what most newly minted doctors and lawyers make, but with a tiny fraction of their, hours, stress and school loans. Sure, if you compare yourself to a friend who does routine office admin 40 hrs/week, your 4-hour weekend change window or 3-am support call may seem stressful. But you ought to be making much more. If you're not, get some certs and start looking.

  [–]DamienStarkCCIE 6 pontok 2 nappal ezelőtt

  I already posted a huge comment about company size, but I'm posting again, because I love this topic. It's way more important for aspiring network engineers than "should I study voice or security" etc.

  I've worked three big network engineering jobs, 5 years, 5 years, 2 years-and-counting. I'll share my experience...

  1 - The schools

  I started out of college as a contractor at a huge government school district - supporting WAN and LAN to 1,200 schools. Mostly Cisco hardware, I was on the level 2 helpdesk. Helpdesk is almost always stressful, because you're dealing directly with "users" who are themselves in stressful/annoyed spot because something is broken. In this case though, the actual work was easy, and gave me time to learn what the engineers were doing and work my way up.

  First to tier 3 desk, then to the engineering team (no more answering calls from angry users). Because we were understaffed and government budgeted, it was hectic, but that also meant little or no change control and tons to learn. If you could fix something in 3 minutes instead of spending 3 hours asking for advice and permission, then get 'er done!

  It was a perfect learning environment, and it's why I advanced as quickly as I did. Because I worked for a large respected consulting firm, there were experts to mentor and share with. Because I was a contractor, I was able to take (unpaid) time off whenever I wanted, which I used to study and earn my CCNA then CCNP. Because it was the school system, there was no such thing as "mission critical 3 AM work" or "weekend change windows". After 5 PM nothing mattered, go home.

  If you asked me then I might say it was kind of stressful, but that was really just hectic/busy, which is actually pretty good for you. The day goes fast, you don't get bored, you practice and learn.

  2 - Health care

  Next I moved states, which required a job change and I took a job on the network engineering and support team at a large health insurance co. This was great in a lot of ways. No longer a contractor, I now had good salary, great benefits, PTO, automatic raises/bonuses, etc. Even paid training, although that waned when the economy hit budgets.

  It was big enough to support specialized teams, and the network was important enough to the business that they took it seriously. Salaries and budgets benefit from that, but now we're talking about 3 am on call and changes only on weekends. They were good about providing comp-time for that, but it does wear on you a bit anyway. I had lab facilities and enough free time to get my CCIE.

  Theoretically there's a good path for advancement and raises now, although the 2008 economy caused everyone to sit tight and hiring freezes and whatnot sort of clamped all that down for a while. My boss told me I had clearly earned a promotion which two years later still hadn't come.

  What really killed it for me though was the bureaucracy. We would warn about big issues and get ignored for months, then all of a sudden budget would appear and they'd be pissed it wasn't done yesterday. Big important decisions which impact the network would get made by java developers or mainframe guys, and we'd have to cope with the fallout.

  In "coping", we wouldn't be allowed to change or touch anything (I'm talking about adding a port description, or turning a port up, or trunk allowed, etc) without large and complex change request approved by Supervisor, Manager, Director, and VP - and the VP would always defer it to a reliability committee, which met twice a week and didn't understand networking - then by a change approval board which also didn't understand networking. Changes like "reboot router" or "replace failed module" would get rejected for not having a detailed backout plan.

  Combined with the never-appearing promition, this prompted me to start looking, and I pretty quickly found current job:

  3 - Consulting to Service Provider

  Now I work for a very large network services practice consulting to a very large service provider. Because they're an SP, they take their network seriously and make a point to understand it. They respect the expertise we provide and appreciate the help.

  I no longer get the hands-on ownership of the network that I loved before, but I also don't have to stress about decisions beyond my control or change control madness. My job is to be an expert, answer their questions, provide guidance. I'm content to do all of these, and less stressed, and more appreciated.

  I could elaborate on my current work, but I've already rambled on so long I doubt anyone wants more. = )
  "

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