nanog mailing list archives

Re: questions asked during network engineer interview


From: Mark Tinka <mark.tinka () seacom com>
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2020 06:03:32 +0200



On 23/Jul/20 01:04, Brandon Martin wrote:
 

Of course, there's also plenty of folks out there without them or any
certs at all that are just as useful in practice.  Getting those
particular certifications does, however, seem to be a useful path to
learning things that are actually of use in the "real world".  I look
at such certificates similar to how I'd look at a 2- or 4-year degree
in a related IT field and just a somewhat different, and perhaps more
approachable for the self-coached or differently-learning, path.

You get two kinds of folk re: certifications:

Those that want to pile up as many certifications as they can, and may
not know when to slow down to actually put those skills into production.

And those who can't wait to put what they have learned into practice,
sometimes at the expense of finding time to actually sit the exam.

It's been a while since I reviewed any certification programs for
network engineers. We live in a time where I am concerned about the
engineers we are creating, where point & click seems to trump basic
understanding + CLI knowledge. My concern is when it all goes to hell at
3AM, do the next generation of network engineers have the base
fundamentals to understand why iBGP isn't coming up, even though you can
"ping" and IGP adjacencies are up and stable?

Mark.


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