1 MONTH IN! | Network Engineer Update!

ah how's it going guys welcome back to the channel of the buff nerd uh how's it going how have you been uh it's been about a month since my most recent video uh which was me talking about finally landing a role as a network engineer after you know jumping through hoops and getting all of the experience and making all the connections over the course of the last two and a half to three years this video here is going to be a little bit of an update uh just to let you guys know what's been going on um what i've been doing over the course of the last three weeks how um i'm starting to get comfortable in this network engineer role and you know just to get you guys updated and get you a little fired up and talk about some of the differences and you know some of the new things that i've been exposed to some of the tasks that i did have in my old job as an admin and you know how things have changed when it comes to me becoming a network engineer first off who am i for those of you that may not be familiar or you know this may be your first or second video that you've seen that i've made i am the buff nerd also known as brendan but anyways i've been on youtube for the last two years um i haven't been on consistently um over these last two years i've only made about 11 videos but i started out on youtube two years ago talking about my journey breaking into the i.t industry and uh some of the things that i had to do and some of the shirts that i had to obtain in order to help me get my foot in the door and you know also some of the things i had to do to you know stay grounded i talk about all the different experiences that i've had as far as going from the help desk or actually going from an internship to the help desk or in going from a help desk to a network admin role and most recently this video here will be talking about my transition from a network admin to a network engineer it's going to be a little unusual because um i know that you guys are probably going to expect me to go into extreme detail talking about all the cool stuff that i do now all the stuff i put my hands on or you know all of the different technologies and all of that cool stuff but it's actually kind of different and when i say kind of different i mean it's different compared to some of my previous roles because uh previously i worked for an enterprise company as a network admin it was actually my first network admin position uh this is where i went from the help desk to the admin role comparing that position as an admin to my position now as an engineer there are there are a lot of similarities but there's also a huge difference we'll talk about that later but anyways so um that's who i am it's a in a nutshell um just a guy that started out on the help desk actually i started out as a dude that just got a couple of search no college no experience whatsoever uh got some certs got my foot in the door with it industry and then worked my way up over two and a half to three years to the level i'm at now as a network engineer the position that i hold now uh is a contract position with the department of defense which is considered the government sector when it comes to the whole it industry um there's a private sector which is all of the enterprise companies you know uh quicken loans little caesars uh any all of those companies you could think of you could think of apple you know verizon all of those companies those are considered the private sector the government sector would be you know jobs specifically tailored towards the military or the you know the air force or the army and things of that nature companies get contracts in order to provide different services to the dod and i went from going to the private sector and you know working with a bunch of civilians to the department of defense which is working with a bunch of veterans a bunch of soldiers that are still in and you know things along those lines that's where i landed my role as a network engineer which is amazing but let me talk about some of the differences between uh some of my some of my previous roles and my role here as an engineer so first we're gonna start talking about uh my role as an engineer now so um as an engineer some of the stuff that i do uh in a nutshell very on the surface some of the things i do now as a network engineer aren't very different like for instance monitoring uh networks for multiple military installations using a monitoring software uh like for instance solarwinds something that i do a little bit different now is instead of troubleshooting layer 2 uh and you know layer one issues when it comes to a network now i'm looking more into layer three you know looking at different protocols like ospf or bgp or isis or eigrp in my current role bgp and ospf are the darlings when it comes to the routing protocol that's used with my particular job um i'll you know look at those configurations and troubleshoot as needed depending on the calls that are coming in specific events that will come up that will call for uh customers to request configs and you know as a network engineer me and my team uh generate configs and you know go line by line to check and see exactly you know what it is that they need and all the configurations they need before giving them out and also uh daily we perform regular network configuration backups um to you know make sure that in the event that something goes wrong or something needs to be fixed there will always be a backup uh ready to you know be used in order to get things up to speed and to prevent a network from being down for an extended period of time in a nutshell my role as a network engineer over the course of the last month those are some of the core things that i've been doing paying attention to watching and getting familiar with uh when it comes to my role as a network engineer one of the things that i wanted to make sure i talked about was uh the difference between this role as a network engineer versus one of my past roles as a network admin and that's primarily because my role as a network engineer you think that i'd be in the weeds you know i'd be out and about going to different places in network closets looking at mdfs and idfs you know to make sure everything's up to speed but actually that's not the case at all at least not in my current role um it's more of a at my desk uh doing things remotely you know logging into routers or switches and doing this or that uh doing troubleshooting from there which kind of threw me for a loop i won't lie you know i expected that this network engineer position would be a little bit more hands-on you know the crazy thing is there is a lot of growth there is a lot of growth there is you know a lot of ways to pivot and there's a lot of stuff that i can get my hands on but we're still very early you know well at least i'm still very early in this position so of course i haven't experienced none of that yet so you know um i'm just going based off of some of the things that are the core you know tasks that need to be done on a day-to-day basis i thought that it'd be a little bit more physical you know going out and touching things moving things but it's uh not for the most part but one of my past network admin positions uh it was like that uh i was doing the work of a network engineer if i had to compare both of these roles um this is when i was in the private sector i was it was my first network admin role um i was grossly underpaid but at the same time i appreciated it because it was more than i was making on the help desk and it was a lot of the experience that i needed in order to you know land future roles um as admins or engineers you know uh in that first admin role that i got i was doing everything um i was in and out of buildings i was looking at idfs i was uh upgrading ioss i was you know traveling with other engineers watching them do their thing i got plenty of exposure i've seen plenty of platforms i touched a lot of things it was very overwhelming as you know i talked about in my previous video and it's just it's a little funny just understanding that you know now that i'm an actual engineer yeah of course you know it's a different company with different important tasks that need to be done and you know all of that um it seems like my workload now is you know a little bit less or a little bit more tamed than back when i was an admin um when i was an admin yeah there were a lot of technologies there was a lot of exposure but it was very unorganized sometimes i was i felt like i was drowning in work you know because the engineers were so busy and me being a newbie and covet hitting you know there was a lot i had to catch up on you know there was a lot of uncertainty as far as how i felt i also had to get my ccna while i was in that role i didn't have to but i wanted to you know and you know there was a lot of moving pieces when i was an admin there but you know now that i've kind of gotten the hang of things and now i am officially a network engineer it's just you know it's a little funny and i i hear plenty of people talk about it they talk about how you know depending on where you are the different tiers as far as you know the stuff that people do it varies and you know some people uh some companies actually uh have tier systems that you know do a little bit more than others or tier systems that do a little bit less um the crazy thing about that is my previous role that i just left as a lan wan admin uh that was actually tier one me being transparent with you guys um when i went from that first admin role which is being in the closets and doing everything to the next admin role down in north carolina uh i went back to tier one essentially so in my opinion if i had to say this was a step up or a step to the side it wasn't it was a step backwards i went from being a full-blown admin touching and all that good stuff to sitting at a desk and being the first point of contact taking calls uh directing traffic communicating with different teams and all the other stuff that i did when i was on the help desk and yeah i did a little bit of troubleshooting and a little bit of configuration changes like uh you know when it came to like like making sure that uh port was on a particular vlan and printers and you know doing things like that um outside of that i was basically like a knock analyst where i just kept my eyes on the monitoring software that we were using you know and then when things went down made phone calls and all of that stuff uh so going from that which is it's considered tier one like at that particular company that was considered tier one and tier two was the guys that were going out touching things making configuration changes you know doing all of that cool stuff you know and i'm like okay well you know if this is tier one i want to go to tier two and you know as you guys know for those of you that watch my content regularly uh the position that i have now as a network engineer is considered tier two and yet this road doesn't require any touching any configuration like like me going out and going into these network closets and you know doing any of that it's all things that can be done while sitting at a desk and i mean it's not bad it's not bad at all i'm still doing network engineer things but it was a little bit of a letdown you know um because i'm one of those people that has to touch something or you know i do a better job learning something by touching it by feeling it by you know being up close and personal having eyes on it you know seeing the green and amber lights on the routers and switch you know that's the kind of person that i am uh when it comes to learning you know i learned the best in that kind of environment uh but you know once i got this role as a tier two engineer you know it was you know just a little bit of a letdown you know but i noticed that the more um the more exposure that i have you know the more i work with this team and the deeper i dive into some of these tasks that we do i realize that there is a lot of room to you know get out and do those type of things and you know that's something that i'm going to work towards but yeah man i just wanted to give you guys an update on things and talk to you about and talk to you about uh some of the things that i've experienced since obtaining this job as a network engineer so in a nutshell the point of this video was this primarily it was to give you guys an update on how things are going how good of a time or bad of a time i'm having as a network engineer i'm having a great time and you know to try and you know to ask some of them questions you know to see if you guys experience this you know going from like one company to another company um does one company have a tier system like uh or tier two tier one admins tier two admins tier three admins and they have specific tasks and you know things that they have to do on a daily basis and it's totally different from this company and their different tiers and also um just let you guys know exactly what i mentioned in my one of my most previous videos when i'm talking about um you know you having to leave the state or are you having to make a big change or take a step back in order to take two steps forward that's exactly what happened to me in this role or at least this in my previous role because like i said in my first admin role i was a part of the team that was doing everything i was touching stuff i was configuring stuff to be completely honest i could have stayed in that role and kept working that role to get to where i wanted to be as far as becoming an engineer it may have take taken a lot longer you know but instead i chose to go a different route i took a step back taking another admin role and you know although it's an admin role it's considered tier one which could also be considered the help desk uh after taking that step back getting cozy you know doing a lot of networking you know getting the lay of the land you know preserving my security clearance because that's one of the reasons why i took this different admin role was to preserve my security clearance and obtain lines in the military um doing all the networking i needed and then eventually landing a role as a network engineer through nothing but sheer networking the entire point of this whole video uh was me just giving you guys an update on how things are going with me and this new network engineer role um talking about some of the things that i noticed and have experienced while in this role and um you know just to give you guys uh some visuals and some transparency when it comes to me going from my previous role and then you know completely leaving my home state in order to eventually reach my ultimate goal as a network engineer i'm still getting the feel for things and you know there's still a lot of moving pieces because on top of this i'm still working towards obtaining the ccnp uh i bought the boson uh labbing uh not labbing software i bought the boson practice exam questions and uh after buying the exam questions i realized that there's a lot of things that i have to go over again you know and refresh on because you know i've been studying this for some months now and some of those topics that i thought may not be as important uh starting to show up a lot in the practice questions you know and i just want to make sure that i'm prepared for anything so more on that later i should be taking that test very soon but anyways um i'll also be um making another video uh in the next maybe week or so you know talking about a couple of certifications that i have um it's going to be a comparison between the network plus and the ccna i got a couple of questions from some of the subscribers asking uh which one would be a better way to go and you know how was my experience with those particular certifications and you know things along those lines and i plan on breaking down those points and giving you guys a clear picture on exactly which direction you guys should go but until then stay safe stay positive take some business cards and do some networking and get the gains in the gym or in the books

Channel: TheBuffNerd

Views: 5,503

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Id: zCXvrdTyjcY

Length: 16min 17sec (977 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 13 2021