nanog mailing list archives
Re: questions asked during network engineer interview
From: Mark Tinka <mark.tinka () seacom com>
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2020 10:16:33 +0200
On 24/Jul/20 09:59, Peter Kristolaitis wrote:
I would suggest that companies who follow FAANG-type development models actually value both expertise and curiosity, and also throw in the ability and willingness to rapidly iterate. Certainly one can search Google for solutions to nearly any problem, but it takes expertise to take the bits you find and structure them in a way that makes sense for your particular problem -- both to solve the immediate problem and to make addition of future features or bug fixes easier.
And I agree with this. You need some reasonable level of base expertise in order to get the gig first. What I mean with "curiousity" being much more important nowadays is that the skills you got the gig with may not necessarily apply in their entirety as you rapidly iterate. So what your expertise gets you, at that point, is the fastest path toward the result of your curiousity in figuring out how to adjust with the changing landscape. When you get that result, you add to your expertise, further reinforcing your curiousity; and so the wheel goes. What I am not in support of is expertise getting hired, and assuming it doesn't need to be curious anymore because you hired it for what it was good at. That is how you find yourself in the same place, 10 years later, reminiscing about how great Multicast was. Except that with how ubiquitous the Internet is now, obsolescence has a much shorter gestation window than 10 years. Mark.
Current thread:
- Re: questions asked during network engineer interview, (continued)
- Re: questions asked during network engineer interview William Herrin (Jul 23)
- Re: questions asked during network engineer interview Michael Thomas (Jul 23)
- Re: questions asked during network engineer interview Mark Tinka (Jul 24)
- Re: questions asked during network engineer interview William Herrin (Jul 24)
- Re: questions asked during network engineer interview Mark Tinka (Jul 24)
- Re: questions asked during network engineer interview Wayne Bouchard (Jul 24)
- Re: questions asked during network engineer interview Mark Tinka (Jul 24)
- Re: questions asked during network engineer interview William Herrin (Jul 24)
- Re: questions asked during network engineer interview Mark Tinka (Jul 24)
- Re: questions asked during network engineer interview Peter Kristolaitis (Jul 24)
- Re: questions asked during network engineer interview Mark Tinka (Jul 24)
- Re: questions asked during network engineer interview Valdis Klētnieks (Jul 23)
- Re: questions asked during network engineer interview Mark Tinka (Jul 22)
- Re: questions asked during network engineer interview Ben Cannon (Jul 21)
- Re: questions asked during network engineer interview Brandon Martin (Jul 21)
- Re: questions asked during network engineer interview William Herrin (Jul 21)
- Re: questions asked during network engineer interview Nick Hilliard (Jul 21)
- Re: questions asked during network engineer interview Mel Beckman (Jul 21)
- Re: questions asked during network engineer interview Mark Tinka (Jul 21)
- Re: questions asked during network engineer interview Owen DeLong (Jul 21)
- Re: questions asked during network engineer interview Mark Tinka (Jul 22)