Twenty Years

Twenty years working as a network engineer. Twenty-two years since I first met a router console via HyperTerminal. I guess it reminded me of the ZX Spectrum’s all-white screen with the black flashing cursor. And the router had a prompt!

What a journey it has been! Two countries. Small companies, huge corporations, freelancing. Service providers, integrators, an IXP and a hyperscaler. Dozens of enterprise customers of all sizes, universities, research institutes, internal customers. Racking, patching, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, ISDN, IPv4, IPv6, TCP, UDP, STP, LACP, VoIP, VRRP, EIGRP, OSPF, BGP, IS-IS, MPLS, EVPN, VXLAN, GRE, IPsec, Linux, Ansible, a tiny bit of Python. Operations, troubleshooting, deployment, architecture and design, mentoring, management. Studying, learning and experimenting. Failure, success, sadness, joy, stress, relaxation, disappointment, pleasure, exhaustion, enthusiasm, loneliness, fulfillment. And most importantly, people. Customers, colleagues, students. Friends, or not so friends.

Looking back, I see myself and the industry landscape changing over the years. From struggling to understand the basics, to building a solid foundation and learning how to learn. Frank, my CCNP teacher and the person who inspired me the most to take the network engineering path, always advised, “You should be able to hold your own in a discussion.” From the absolute fear of hitting “Enter” with a shaking hand, to the luxury of commit confirmed. Vendors sometimes make our lives easier. From uncertainty to confidence. From being lost in text files to network automation and observability. From being scared to pick up the phone and call the customer to speaking at conferences. From the innocent and decentralized to the consolidated and dangerous Internet. From highly motivated to build networks, to… highly motivated to build networks!

The industry has changed and evolved. I have changed. But as I build the next-generation Research and Education Network with my friends at work, I still feel the same joy as twenty years ago.

To the next twenty* years!

* Or as many as AI allows us to be around!