Episode 22: New Job Territory with Kyle Wolfe
In this episode, we sit down with Pat's college buddy Kyle who is a Senior Network Systems Analyst at Kutztown University. Kyle recently changed jobs, so we chatted about how changing jobs can be intimidating and scary. Kyle breaks down some things he did to make that leap less scary. We also talked about some interview tips, studying your interviewer and getting outside your comfort zone to make the leap!
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Pat: 0:19
Everybody welcome back to this week's edition of, so you want to be an it or a podcast in those start out their journey in the vast world of. If you are a first-timer welcome. It's good to have you, if you are a returning customer, you know, we're about what we talk about. So we are in the space of breaking into the it industry, from everything to get the first job to climbing the ladder management, office politics and anything in between. So. You can find me on Twitter @patallen182. And you can find the show on Twitter @sywbiit the acronym for, so you want to be in it. We're pretty active on Twitter. So come say, hello. Dean's here in Vegas as usual with me as always. Dean is on Twitter as well @DeanMacUK. And yeah, what's updating. Hey, Don.
Dean: 1:10
How you doing? Good long week, but yeah, it's good to get together and record again.
Pat: 1:17
Yeah, it's been a long week. I've been looking forward to getting behind the mic and chatting with everybody. So welcome. Heck yeah. Appreciate you joining us for the hour or so that we're going to be on here. So we have another guest this week, a personal friend of mine, a long time friends college colleague, if you will, because we went to college together weighed way back in early 2000 to 2000, somewhere in there. And we've been friends ever since. So, say what's up to Kyle Wolf. I got.
Kyle: 1:44
Hey, what's going on.
Dean: 1:45
So yeah. Thank you for joining the shirt.
Kyle: 1:49
Thanks for that.
Pat: 1:51
It's always a good time with the guest. You know, people people love Dina and I, but people really love the guests. So we're going to keep this penny put on the show that so that's awesome. So Kyle we tell the people find people that are out there listening sort of what you're doing where you kind of came from what you're doing now. And if I'm not mistaken, you recently just got a new job. Is that right? I did. Basically as a work-study student intern, a community college that I was going to that pat and I are actually going to work in the help desk, you know, doing started at the bottom kind of deal like that worked my way from, you know, intern part-time like help desk manager then transitioned into an audio visual position that was over there. And then from there. Transitioned into a full-time position as a apple administrator. I was the guy that did all the wifi on campus and networking beautiful. Then from there it was firewalls more networking and then ultimately ended up as a server administrator before I ended up.
Dean: 3:03
Fun.
Pat: 3:04
So Kyle, you were in, you were really running the gamut there at at north Sansa community college shout outs in and community college. And for those of you that don't know, Kyle and I are in Pennsylvania about an hour north of. And deans are all the way out there in Vegas, in Tinseltown doing his thing with
Dean: 3:21
someone's gotta live here.
Pat: 3:24
Right? So, yeah. So Kyle and I are in Eastern Pennsylvania except about an hour north of Philly and authentic community colleges. Community college here in the valley where we live. So, like Kyle said, Kyle and I went to college together, sorta knew each other from the same circles, same degrees, that sort of thing. And then there was like a core group of us, Kyle that sorta just stayed friends and we still are to, you know, to this day, which is kind of cool.
Dean: 3:46
So did you guys study Cisco, like tech, the giver, or did you happen to go at college and call walk? I caught you at the same time or were you by studying together on how did that.
Kyle: 3:56
We were we were both classmates, you know, students doing the the Cisco classes that they were at the time. I guess they've changed quite a bit now, but that's kinda how we met. Most of the core classes were all the same for networking and hardware. And I think there was a security one till.
Pat: 4:15
So the major that we were in, I think it's at the time it was computer information systems, I believe CIS. And like Kyle said, they were, they all had the same courses, so we all tended to. Like pick the same time slots and same courses. So we all just like, we were like the rat pack of north Africa, we just moved from class to class and we had the same classes at the same time. So like, you know, again, Cisco classes security classes shout out to key tar traps for our security professor. Who is now a chief information security officer somewhere. I forget where he's at, but these are the big time now. But shout out to him, shout out to Kevin manna, who was our network Cisco networking teacher. I know they listened to this podcast. So, yeah, we were sort of, we just kind of traveled in the same circles we tracked. You know, the same classes together. We have the same labs together and you know, that sort of thing. So it just kinda, we were you're kind of like frat brothers, but we didn't actually belong to a frat or any of the cool we didn't drink or party. We just kind of moved from classroom to classroom and, you know, copied off each other's homework.
Dean: 5:14
Yeah. I've got a few guys who I went to college, a community college where you kind of disliked have your breaks with you. Do your labs with. Yeah. If you caught up the questions gone to Dell, if you forgot your homework. Yeah. It's a beautiful thing. Yeah.
Pat: 5:31
Yes, it is. It was, it made college fun. It really did. But now Kyle, you got into the, you got into the co-op stuff. Like you got into the help desk there, which I didn't. But you were, you kinda got your student like said co-op and then kind of worked your way in there and you were there 13 years, right? Yeah.
Kyle: 5:48
Yeah. Like 10 years full time kind of deal like that. Cause I just got a sweet pin, the letter N
Pat: 5:58
nice that they give you stuff when you leave, right? Yeah.
Kyle: 6:03
But then I transitioned from there. I started on the 14th at Kutztown university as a senior network analyst.
Pat: 6:12
Yeah. So then Kyle you're so now you're at Kutztown shout out to Kutztown. And then, so you're kind of doing as far as like an analyst, what do they classify an analyst as? Is that more of like an engineer role or are you just kind of looking at graphs and charts and being like, Hey, this stuff is, you know, Hey, we're at 99% firewall utilization. Somebody take a look at it.
Kyle: 6:34
It's still like. In engineering kind of role and stuff like that. And you know, we're installing new hardware, we're doing the firewall and everything else, you know, we're not, I'm not just watching graphs, which would probably be pretty awesome, but
Pat: 6:49
that
Dean: 6:50
sounds cool. That's about, or one of these eyes, what's a pretty graphs tell you enough information,
Pat: 6:55
that's it? Hell yeah. So then Kyle so you're touching like poor network infrastructure, right? So switches, right. Wifi as well. Is that right? Yep. A wifi and telecom. Tele-town cool stuff there or,
Kyle: 7:10
yeah, they have a Cisco system there.
Pat: 7:13
Okay. So UCS. Nice. Is that, so, so do you do you have somebody that manages that backend Cisco, like, like call manager stuff or you guys have that on your plate too? That's us. Yeah. Okay. So it's all internally
Kyle: 7:27
managed. Yeah. Just, I mean, basically it was diving in there for the first time today. It was pretty interesting.
Pat: 7:34
Nice, cool. Yeah, it's
Dean: 7:36
really cool. It's cool. They should get, you must touch a lot of different disciplines of technology and be well-rounded in so many different arenas. I must be pretty sweet, but jumping from kind of voice to route and switch to wifi, I must be looking at that must be nice in a few good day. You must never get bored.
Kyle: 7:54
No. Yeah. There's definitely always something to do. I mean, you know, like I said, I'm still just kinda getting in the pool. There's a lot going on. I mean, it just, even the size of the campus is huge compared to the community college, stuff like that, and yeah, but it's been pretty good so far. I mean, everything has been a good.
Dean: 8:16
Cool. Are you still studying or do you still participate in the Cisco arena in terms of certifications or is that something you don't do anymore?
Kyle: 8:25
It's definitely something I'm looking into, you know, like we were in, you know, we had a study group that we were doing that was awesome. Of linking it back into that.
Dean: 8:35
Cool. Is there any such you are looking into or attract or attractive to you or.
Kyle: 8:40
Still probably like, well, I've been interested in security for awhile. So I was looking to getting maybe a security plus just something kind of entry level, you know, I don't really have any search right now at all. It was just, I hopped from one thing to the next. So, so frequently it was kind of hard just to stay focused on any one thing.
Dean: 8:59
Totally understandable. Especially with your overall what job it's always dynamically changing. So all the plethora of different technologies you're using, I can only imagine. Yeah. You get an easily distracted.
Pat: 9:12
Yeah. Yeah. I find that interesting. Cause I'm sort of doing that now too with my place. So I just recently passed the Palo Alto, TC NSA. And then right now in the grip sells the CCNP security track. And after. I want to do the AWS solutions architect, but those are all three things that I'm currently doing, like at my job. So I feel like it's pertinent to people that okay. And then on the ground floor, whether you're doing the help desk or whatever and trying to apply, or sort of see six, eight months down in, down the road and seeing, okay, look, I could see myself doing. X. Right. So whether that's security plus whether that's, you know, something in the security field, right. Ch or SEP, or any of those kind of crazy stuff, but yeah, you almost have to go for assert that you're something that you're working with now, because it's very hard to it's very hard to work in an environment where. Like traditional, you know, I sent traditional nine to five and then go home and study something that's completely different or on a completely different rung of the ladder. That's a very hard switch to flip and try to, in terms of getting your mind in the right place to do that. So if you're going to help desk spot, I would recommend doing the eight plus or N plus or security plus, or even I think there's a Linux plus out there now. I mean, there's all kinds of stuff from a comp Tia perspective that you could be doing. Make it pertainable to the job that you're the position that you have now, that's going to help you in the near future to get to that next wrong. I feel like that's pertinent to your call, especially with you because you and I, you know, obviously talk for the last feels like I'm 10 million years and you've always sort of strive for that. You know, Hey, I want to do this or, Hey, can you help me with the CCNA or, Hey, can you do this and that sort of thing? And I feel like now you're in a better. To do that CCNA because you are working in, you know, you're one, you have a position that you're touching that stuff every day. Hands-on and too, I would assume you're heavily used Cisco shop. I mean, not maybe not a hundred percent because there's not a lot of environments out there that are a true vendor, agnostic or vendor specific, I should say. But you know, the sec I think would help at your level because you touch it so often. And you're in that you're in that environment day to day, is that.
Kyle: 11:29
Yeah. And I mean, now that I'm like focused just on networking, you know, like it's easier to stay in that, like you said, I don't have to flip a switch when I get home and go like, well, I was doing this today all day and now I gotta get home, change gears and get back in a, you know, something different.
Pat: 11:51
Right. Yeah, no, I think that's, I think that's a good tip for folks. Yeah, you're in, on the ground floor, like I said, Pick something that you're working with every day that, that excites you or that you could see stick around long time. So if you're a server guy, you know, move to server plus, or, you know, grab a Microsoft server you know, even the shore, right, or any of the cloud, you know, the low level, I don't say low level, it's kind of cheapens it, but you know, the is your, the AWS, you know, one of those, the AWS cloud practitioners are good one, right. For the AWS folks Is a good one. GCP is the up and comer, right? You can't go wrong with that. I know when I was at Rentokil they were a GCP shop, so that's gaining more steam. So any one of the big three, and if you listen to our last episode with with Ethan, from packet pushers he says the same thing, big three AWS, Azure, and GCP, just the up and comer. So, you know, you can't go wrong with that. So just pick something that you. That you're dealing with day to day, another excites you, that you find value there in that serve that you're going to take
Dean: 12:49
to be fair. AWS, didn't go down since we lost productivity from. So, yeah, I would stick to Azure or GCP. They seem to have time this year and the opportunity to back on AWS and lock up grumbled employer. I'm not that I just love trashing. I think it's more geared towards AWS. It's hatred. I like the cloud. I don't like, I don't like Amazon cloud.
Pat: 13:15
You heard it here first. You heard it here first? No, that's funny. No. So Kyle, I guess, I guess the next question for me is then like, so, so, and without getting into too much specifics, cause obviously this is, you know, a public platform, but like, you know, was there a time that said, okay, look, this. This a run at Northampton was good for me, but now it's time to move on. So, you know, it was something like flipping your brain to say, okay, look yeah, there's more out there. There's another, there's a whole big world out there. Let me go see what's out there. Or was it more of like, Okay. Like for you forced out of your comfort zone. Cause I'm a big proponent of, if you don't learn anything, if you're inside your comfort zone, right. The only way you grow is outside of that bubble. So, you know, taking that step forward to me like, oh, there's a whole new world out here. I'm kind of nervous on how to start this. I think it came from a good place. I'm just curious on your thought process of like what made you finally like step outside the room and be like, oh wow, there's a whole world.
Kyle: 14:14
It kinda came down to it. Yeah. I ran out of, I guess, room to grow really. Yeah, there was, you know, I kinda just stayed in the position and, you know, collected the cost of living adjustments and kinda, you know, maybe on a couple of little bonuses here or something like that, but ultimately, you know, that was going to be my life going forward. You know, it wasn't. Be a director or anything like that. So I started looking around and kind of found this and it seemed like it kind of aligned with the things that I had, you know, that we had done in school. Kind of the, like that things that I'd done for years and I applied for it, you know, kind of deal like that. And it was, you know, it was frightening because it's at the same place for 13 years. Yeah. Everybody. There was like little family and everybody helped everybody kind of deal like that. And just getting out of the comfort zone, like you said, you know, just had to make a move,
Dean: 15:15
rip that bandaid off. I
Pat: 15:16
think that's a good one.
Dean: 15:18
Yeah. How was it rip the bandaid off? It's great. That's it? And that's plaster for our UK listeners. What's about to say. What was the interview process like going into, I don't know if he was technical folks, maybe HR. And what did that look like? Was it front and him for you? Was it door in? Did you have to brush up on some technology aspects? W you tell us what that looked like, please?
Kyle: 15:42
So it was, I met with basically who was my boss, so like the head of the networking department. I met with the head of who was doing security. And I met with the server administrator kind of deal like that. That was the interview team kind of deal like that. And I actually asked about that before I even got interviewed just to the interviewees, like who is going to be interviewing me. So I kind of knew how to maybe prepare any of the questions that might come at me.
Dean: 16:10
Nice.
Kyle: 16:11
Do a little homework. So, but it was, you know, pretty standard, you know, like what's the subnet mask, what's the gateway, what's a, you know, what is BGP? What is, you know, how would you approach these different things? Nothing too crazy out of the ordinary and just a bunch of tech questions. Then some like little off the wall things. Spatial thinking, you know, just kinda just see how you process. And that was it. I mean, it was actually less stressful than I thought it was going to be nice.
Dean: 16:48
Yeah. Some of those techniques can be brutal. I know somebody might need to go to bed to a pub afterwards and have a few drinks, just the calm down, because hands are shaking and everything.
Pat: 17:00
Yeah. I'm not a fan of today's interview process
Dean: 17:04
pretty bad.
Pat: 17:05
I think it's broken. I think it's really broken. To be honest with you. I think. You know, it's like how many interviews do you need to actually know that this guy or gal is the right person for you, right. The right person for your organization. Like you're interviewing with your boss, your interview, and then with the team and you're interviewing with their director, then you're interviewing with, you know, you know, all these people. And before, you know, You're like five or six episode episodes, five or six, like five or six interviews into this thing. And you're like this, the school and like three months, I'm like, Lord, this is insane. I just think that the interview process today is completely broken. It's like, look, meet with your boss, you know, maybe meet with your team. And then one would HR to sort of lay out the land of, you know, here's what you're going to get. Here's what we're about sort of a gloat session of companies doing X, Y, and Z. And that's it like three at the max. Like I leave in like two, to be honest with you, like boss and team together, then one, one HR and boom. You're done. But the three at the max, like you get any more than three you're like, dude pulling my chain here. What's gone on.
Dean: 18:12
Okay. The series of interviews where it's like five different rounds and like it's brutal. Yeah. I'm into that, Eva. You probably lose interest after a while. Auditioning for, be the, you know what I mean? Like, you know what I mean? I just want to be a network engineer.
Pat: 18:28
Yeah. And I don't know what it's like at the help desk level. I would assume it's probably a little less stringent, but like even at the help desk level, if you're coming in and interviewing for a help desk and you're going through four or five rounds, which I don't think it's that common, but it could be Cool. If there's that I should say, if there's this much red tape to hire a help desk person, imagine what it's like working there day in and day out. Like, Ooh, no, thank you. Like some of those are red flags for me too. Like. You have to it because the interview process is just as much an interview. You're interviewing Deb as they are, you know,
Dean: 19:06
they shouldn't for that. I kind of felt like there were like the report buttons on and yeah. It's like, if you mishandled me from this moment forward, like I may just not work at your company. I like that's an option too. You can say no.
Pat: 19:25
Right. Yeah, no, a hundred percent. I think that's a big one today, especially with the interview folks. And that's a good point. You brought up how with, you know, knowing the names of who you're interviewing with. I do all kinds of, I do all kinds of stocking when that, when I'm interviewing people or I'm trying to go for an interview, I know a name, or I know, you know, a couple of names I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on Google shirts. Like I want to know. All about these people. Like, yeah. What's your kids names. Yeah.
Dean: 19:48
I don't go that deep, but I get your point. Like, I look for what they went to college for what they studied, what they're really what that expert fields in, and then a brush up on that for the knowledge. So I do.
Pat: 20:02
Yeah. Yeah. You have to know them going in cars, going into them cold into a zoo, especially now in the. Uh, Era most things are done over zoom or
Dean: 20:13
Eva. They're horrible.
Pat: 20:15
No, I don't like them either. There just,
Dean: 20:19
yes, this wait doesn't work. Does it just it's just like a, it's like a detachment there.
Pat: 20:25
There's a disconnect for sure.
Dean: 20:26
Yeah. It's just doesn't to me, I'm just like, this is, it's a medium, but something, some of the fundamentals, miss it.
Pat: 20:34
I agree. Yeah. I try to find out as much as I can about the boss or the major players and I'm meeting with and, you know, write notes and that way you bring it up, right. You bring it up and say, Hey, you know, you did this or, Hey, you worked at so-and-so. and I knew somebody that worked in and it just, it breaks the mood up a little bit. It breaks the tension in the room. So for anybody listening for interview tips out there, do your homework. Before you get in the room, that's going to make your conversation much better. It shows that you put in effort to this meeting with them, and then it shows that you have an issue to go out and think outside the box sort of thing in that aspect. So I think that's a big one. And Kyle, I think that's a big one for you moving forward into a new realm and sort of, kind of talking about that. Like, how did, how do you adapt or how do you, how are you adapting to, like, I would assume. Northampton and could sound have different cultures, right? As far as people and players and personalities, and dare I say egos in the it world, because we all know there's some of those like how's the ha like you, you were there now tantra for 13 years, you knew everybody, you said it was family. Like, and you all went to barbecues and drank beers and that kind of stuff. Like right now you have a whole. You know, quote unquote class of people, pun intended have to work with and kind of feel out and whatnot. So what's that? How are you adapting to the culture shock there? If you are a culture change?
Kyle: 21:52
It's been pretty good so far, you know, haven't really gotten anything too crazy, but you know, I'm only met like 6:00 PM. Pretty much just getting, you know, my keys, my ID, all the access that I need to, to certain different things and stuff like that. Hasn't really given me too much time to go around and meet a whole bunch of people. But right now I've met a good portion of the people in our group. Everybody seems really whole seems knowledgeable, you know, telling me stories about where they came from and stuff like that. So it's been good, you know? Just kind of very similar, just at a different place. Okay. But yeah,
Pat: 22:34
and I'm curious are two columns. So you went from Northampton, which was a college community college, smaller size, but I'm going to call it to Kutztown, which is in the. It's still a college it's still university, like D do you like the university setting in that aspect, then you kind of stayed in it or was, that was just kind of presented to you at the time that you just kind of moved or I'm just curious of your wanting to stay in the same education realm?
Kyle: 23:00
It was kind of, it presented to me as I was like searching and looking and stuff like that. It was one of the things that came up first. Also because. Again, we're talking about you don't really make any progress unless you change. But change is also scary. Yeah. So I figured going higher ed to higher ed would be much less frightening thing going hybrid straight into like corporate.
Pat: 23:23
Okay.
Kyle: 23:25
So it was like, you know, kind of make the jump into there, get my feet wet, try something different, you know, and then see and adjust at that point, if I have to, or, you know, however it works.
Pat: 23:37
Cool. Yeah. I'm always curious to that. If people like moving I want to say laterally, but staying in the same same staying in the same sector of business where, you know, in this instance it's a school. You know, normally when I jumped jobs, it's a completely. You know, style of business or section of business. So it's just an interesting thing to see you go from one school to another. And I wasn't sure if that was just the way the cards played out or you really liked that, you know, college setting, if you will and have stayed with it there.
Kyle: 24:08
Yeah. I mean, there's some other benefits too. With being able to go back for, you know, like an advanced degree or something usually is little to no money. Yeah. If you're like a full-time employee. So I was like, man, you know, maybe I'll pursue that avenue too, since I'm there.
Pat: 24:30
Yeah. That's a good one. That's a good one. Do you have a bachelor's degree?
Kyle: 24:34
I do.
Pat: 24:34
Okay.
Kyle: 24:35
I got my bachelor's from Pierce in Philly. I did it online kind of deal like that.
Pat: 24:42
So your bachelor's is in what then?
Kyle: 24:44
It's network security. And server administration.
Pat: 24:49
Oh, nice. Nice plans for like a master's or a anything like,
Kyle: 24:54
yeah, that's kind of what I was looking at. I was looking when I was at north Hampton, but they kind of have you have to stay like five years shit to kind of pay it back. The one thing that's nice about Cookstown is they don't have. Okay. Like when you, you pay your taxes and fees and whatnot, and when you're done.
Dean: 25:11
That's awesome. Okay. Nice. I love that, but yeah, that's a nice perk. Yeah, that's an awesome, most of
Kyle: 25:19
benefits are good.
Dean: 25:21
Most shootings, most schools I heard through that they enrollments have a really cheap or not a significant discount or basically free. So it's good that your planning to tap into that.
Pat: 25:31
Yeah. Yeah. That's an interesting take. I forgot about that piece of it, to be honest with you that they, yeah. They offer you the extra schooling and whatnot, and that, that sort of helps and keeps you, keeps busy and you always look for that you know, next rum sort of thing. So now that makes a lot of sense
Dean: 25:49
how big is your team, Kyle? What w what kind of size that we talking about here in terms of you're like, look, I was a Dodger walking with
Kyle: 25:58
it's pretty small. It's probably about the same size that it was at north Hampton. If maybe just a little bit. But the campus is like leaps and bounds, larger. The infrastructure that they have, like we went from, I think north Hampton had like 240 access points and we have like 3,200 early cut staff, roughly supporting. I don't know yet. I haven't really gotten into the systems. I'm still just kinda kind of pick it up. Things is as I'm going along here.
Dean: 26:34
Okay. But that's a lot of access to,
Kyle: 26:37
I thought they said something about 10,000 today.
Pat: 26:41
Okay.
Dean: 26:41
It's a big amount of people. Yeah. Most people have like two or three devices these days. Good amount of inputs to be enters
Kyle: 26:51
dorms on campus. So there's quite a few dorms there.
Dean: 26:56
Okay. Nice. What kind of access points using Cisco TAC? Use it, Yubico E or w what kind of access points do you guys use it in your facility?
Kyle: 27:06
So they're running extreme switches and they're running extreme access points.
Dean: 27:09
Oh, nice. I knew hard about string switches, not the access points. I didn't know the right access points. Cool. And what's that to work on? Is it difficult, challenging, pretty straightforward.
Kyle: 27:24
It's been pretty straightforward so far, you know, just kind of checked out the dashboard and, you know, hopped in and got my account set up and stuff like that. So, You know, work on learning some of the administration part of it. I spent pretty much the first week just onboarding and keys and stuff like that, so. Okay.
Dean: 27:42
And you guys are the extreme shop end to end, like there's all your infrastructure lecturing or is it just the sort of access network?
Kyle: 27:49
Just that there's think some FortiGate firewall. Or some Cisco equipment that I haven't played in yet. Okay.
Pat: 27:59
So you gotta, you got a decent shop there of multi-vendor.
Kyle: 28:02
Yeah.
Pat: 28:04
Yeah. That's interesting. Well, all that, that brings a question and this is more of outside the, this is tech related, but I feel like there's very little shops that are a one vendor. Place anymore. I think, I feel like most of them are sort of multi-vendor and whatnot. And I I think it's good and bad. Right. I think, you know, the multi-vendor is you sort of spread out your risk in that aspect of being like, okay, well you're an all Cisco shop, but I'm just going to pick on Cisco because I can if you're an all Cisco shop and, you know, Cisco has a, the day zero, a bug, a critical bug. That, you know, spawns multiple platforms and iOS versions and things of that nature. Now you have all those pieces rather than routers, switches, whatever that, that are exposed to that bug, you know, or, you know, in that aspect. Then if you cook, if you kind of spread it out and do multi-vendor, you know, if you have FortiGate firewalls and then you'd have Cisco switches and then you have maybe, you know, extreme AP. You know, then you're, you know, if you only have a bug in the Cisco world, then you're only affecting a smaller portion of the network. And you're not, as, you know, your risk is not as tall of an order, if you will. Then the whole network sort of thing. So I feel like that's thing too, but then the drawback to that is you're managing multiple vendors, which means you have account managers and all in all of those vendors,
Dean: 29:23
Ah,
Pat: 29:24
it's like, that's more talent to take that. Now you have to have a guy that knows FortiGate then those disco in those extreme. And it's just, it's a massive I mean, and you know, let's do the corners to exist. Right? I mean, people find them but it's harder to get the right people in there with the more, you know, the more vendor agnostic you are. Yeah.
Dean: 29:46
Yeah, that's challenge it. I like the mix vendor route, but yes, extremely difficult to support, especially in this day and age. Most people only, I want to learn and do more certifications. What make me less so of bender Pacific and more factor agnostic. And hence why I want to, like, you do like broad shout and do a cloud site and look into other vendors so that I'm just not tied into Cisco gear all the time, because I don't know how, even in 2022 was like Cisco, don't build all the infrastructure for the internet. So I'm not too sure what their market cap wall. I'm not sure what their market cap is, but the point is I'm not too sure where they are in terms of their market capitalization, in the respect of like how much market share they are. And. Yeah. I dunno if you went to, if you went to five, if you tested five different enterprises in network, whether you'll be Cisco very doubtful.
Pat: 30:46
Right, right. That's true. Yeah.
Dean: 30:48
Yeah. So I it's a difficult one to save at a
Pat: 30:52
yeah. I feel like it is sort of a catch 22 in today's age. So if I was somebody starting out today, I would. Get the wide variety of entry level search, right. That get, you know, and they plush from come to you or, you know, a plus seven plus security plus. Yeah. Those were all with comp Tia, but those are, yeah, they're not vendor specific, right? It's not like walking into VM and being like, oh, I'm going to get a DCP. Like if you get a VCP you're an expert on just the VMware. And now there's, you know, there's more out there than that. It's not it's, you know, cloud. DevOps and security and all that other kind of stuff. So I would probably take one from each pool, you know, if you know, time and you know, willingness, you know, get one from from a vendor agnostic perspective, like a comp Tia, or, you know, something of that nature and you know, doing dabble it all cloud plus a plus, you know, like I said, eight plus 10 plus. Non-plastic there's a Linux plus just a pen test, plus there's this year, plus there's everything it's just take two or three that you're interested in and go for it. And that way you're sort of spread over there. So then when somebody, you know, someone, something pops up, right? You say, oh, look, this person is looking for a you know, this person is looking for somebody that knows Palo and FortiGate and, you know, whatever. And you can be like, okay, well, I have a network plus, and that covers or security plus that cover that should cover the core concepts of what those four days of pals are built off of. Right. Cause DCP is TCP no matter who uses it right at all, it's all the same nuts and bolts. So, I would probably look at it from that perspective in today's. Today's. And then, like Kyle said, you know, with the interviews and studying for studying, for free your interview and making sure it's a good fit for you and, you know, kind of going from there, if it's a solid way of advice, if I must say so myself,
Kyle: 32:42
I spent pretty much the night before. You know, thinking of questions you know, cause like he has said, it's them interviewing you as much as it is. You interviewing them. Yep. So anything that I wanted to know, anything that I was curious about how the team worked, how the flow of, you know, between teams go and like, is it. Like tickets that get put in, do you just kind of knock on somebody's door and be like, Hey, I need this firewall change made, you know, like how does that work? And just wrote all those questions down and ask them that, you know, they were nice. Explained everything to me. That's good. So there's no surprises, like when you start and you're like, oh, that's how you guys do this.
Dean: 33:25
That's the why, especially when it's really bad.
Pat: 33:28
Yeah. Yeah. It's all you do all you new folks out there, a ticket for everything.
Dean: 33:35
Yeah. That annoys me too. But in this day and age, you've got no choice. Really?
Pat: 33:42
Yeah. It's true. It's not a ticket. So
Dean: 33:45
I say, well, that's I live by that too. If you don't document it, it didn't happen. Like literally that's right. Even if you go to the gym or you walk out the account, you didn't document it. You didn't wear an apple watch. He didn't wear Google. No one saw your school didn't happen in this day and age. You don't document your document. What you do it doesn't, it didn't happen. It's fake.
Pat: 34:06
Yeah. No, that's true. So actually that leads me to another question with the documentation thing. Kyle, are you getting your hands on any sort of documentation? Like, because I know personally for me I hate documentation. I think it's great. I think it's necessary. It's a necessary evil in today's world. I don't necessarily like making it or sort of, especially when you have nothing to go on, you're kind of like starting from scratch and you're like, all right, there's a blank piece of paper in front of me. And now I'm got to draw a whole network and all the intricacies, and I'm like, this really sucks. You do, are you working with documentation now? Like, did they give you something to be like, okay, look, you know, this isn't, you know, this isn't such a base like here it is on paper.
Kyle: 34:44
Actually, it was a little crazy when I walked into what was my office the first day there's gigantic sheets of paper that were printed out of a plotter. And it was each and every interconnect for like where every fiber runs through every manhole cover through every building, through every anime. Oh, wow. And that was one. There was one for the telco. There's one for the cable, like the co-ax and stuff like that. And I was like, what? And that was it to like, if you have any questions, here's how long the runs are. Here's like the multimode single mode, everything else that you need to know, even the manufacturer of the cable.
Pat: 35:25
That's awesome.
Kyle: 35:26
Wow. And I'm just like, oh, okay. So they're like, if you have any questions, like you should be able to just find it right here.
Pat: 35:33
Wow. That's pretty decent. And
Kyle: 35:35
I was like, okay.
Pat: 35:38
I can get on board. Yeah. Check that off.
Kyle: 35:41
And then, you know, he had my boss basically had like little guides and stuff that he'd used over the years and stuff like that, that he just gave me access to on SharePoint, you know, like little tips and tricks, cheat sheets, best. Yeah. And stuff like that. Like, oh, Hey, you want to set up this thing, out of the box, put all these in and then you're good to go on. I'm like, oh, that's. That's
Pat: 36:02
awesome. Bam. I like that personally for me. And maybe, I dunno, Dean, you can kind of piggyback off of this, but firstly for me, when I started the place right off the bat that I am doing, I'm doing a network diagram and not what's existing. I do it for me. So I build it from the ground up. So then it sinks it soaks in my head. As far as cause then I'm actually doing the legwork, right. So, you know, I'm doing it from a I'm logging into routers, I'm logging into switches, I'm logging into whatever, you know, CDP, neighbors LLDP and just kind of map the network that way. And then I'm putting it into Vizio or lucid chart or whatever you know, document, you know, network documentation program that they use and just doing it all. And I do a layer two day. And then I also do a layer three diagram from a routing perspective. Okay. Your default routes here, your, the internet comes in here. Here's your, now you have a static block. Okay. So static block of a slash 29. And this is your starting IP. This is your ending IP. I put port I labeled ports on actual gear of, you know, gig one is plugged into gig one on the side and blah, blah, blah. Like I, I do it all. And then you know, then that way it's twofold. A if they don't have any documentation at all, Bam. You already checked mark the box. You're golden. Like you look like a superhero and B it's for your own it's for your own knowledge, because you have to know what the hell does networks do and to begin with. So I think it's a win-win in that aspect. And I also diagram any sort of public IPS that we have at. Like what our IP blocks are, public IP space any gnats that are out there, like public facing NATS, web servers, that kind of junk. I put that out there and I usually come out looking like a rockstar because most places I've started, don't have that level of detail and I'm just like, all right, it's going to be my network. I'm going to know how to, you know, if somebody has a look at this, they're going to be able to put a and B together and be like, okay, yeah, this, you know, this is what I'm looking for. So, like I said, it's a win-win because most places don't have that. And me, I have to build it any way to gain the knowledge of the new network that I've never seen before. So that, that works in my favor. I mean, that's the way I do it. I don't know if anybody else is that anal about it. And they say, that's the way there's
Dean: 38:11
tools now pack like you're walking away. I'm just like, yeah, you can do it that way, but hopefully you hadn't our line. That's some work, put it in the worksheet. You can use SNMP, just pull the config and do that. That's kind of what I do. I use, we use solar winds at work and it's not me personally. I've got involved in a project actually where slow the winds where I'm walking, due to the infrastructure, not being built correctly, but that's another story, but Yeah, let me see. I said, and P working and like your villains your management villains in the correct scope and stuff. Yeah. So to wins, I think it's network topology map that we use pulls all that good information for us and paint us a pretty picture of what's connected to what? And yeah, that's how we generally do it, but I have to admit before having that sophisticated software. Yeah, I'd have gone through my fair share of doing what you just described and doing the CDP neighbor. It even, that's a bit antiquated these days, because especially when you're connecting from different departments or different devices. Most people don't allow the CDP discovery discovery protocol to be enabled. So when you're kind of looking at what somebody else ran, you kind of don't get that information anymore. Very rarely do. I see a networks, people using the CDP, unless it's. Private, but going outwards. Yeah. You just don't get this. Don't see that anymore. Really?
Pat: 39:43
That's usually all internal. Yeah. It's
Dean: 39:45
usually all internal and stuff like that because they just don't want to share all their customers or anyone else gleaning information about that hardware. So, in that respect, yeah. But it's good to know, and you don't always have those tools and those tools cost like thousands of dollars. Just to have that knowledge in your head of light, just having the ability to be able to sort of just map that stuff out. Yeah, it's good. It's definitely good. I think there's some more stuff from open source now. But yeah, it's definitely a good skill set of tools to have one thing you did. One thing I always do what most engineers always forget is Especially when the light to net once figuring out with spending tree root, everyone always forgets that everyone's like, oh yeah, just find out the root in. Yeah. Why am I spending. And I was like a two being forwarded. Everyone's all concerned about route and no route. And in this line. Yeah. W what about basic layer? Two G
Pat: 40:37
three issues at networks, then I can count
Dean: 40:40
spanning tree is difficult and no one knows, sadly, no one knows really a lot about it.
Pat: 40:44
I personally like spanning tree a lot. I think it's, I think it's widely misused in most places while. Moving forward. I think it's sort of becoming legacy, especially in data centers. I don't think it's used as much more in data centers anymore. There's more of a spine leaf technology going on there or.
Dean: 41:05
Yeah, they're not really doing really a tune that they, as soon as they do in life, they're doing a lot layer two on top of routing, which is not really pure layer to
Pat: 41:15
point to point links.
Dean: 41:16
Yeah. It's basically trying to get this term. They're trying to basically fabricate a layer two network, but really layer two is like a current official layer. Two.
Pat: 41:27
And then even in the spine leaf, you're only like one, technically one hop away from the core, no matter where you're at. Yeah. It kind of defeats the purpose of spanning tree at that point, because everything's just going north and south anyway. But now I've had more issues with spanning tree. In networks then than I care to admit, like
Dean: 41:46
I kind of find most
Pat: 41:48
that's exactly it they're piss poor designed. And then, you know, somebody throws in a switch in a janitor's closet and it runs spanning tree that came from another office or another building. And then, you know, and all this stuff. Oh shit. Now it's got the older Mac address and there you go. Everything's set to default. It's going to default to, whoever's got the oldest Mac address, and now you have all your layer, two traffic going through an eight port switch and the janitor's closet.
Dean: 42:12
Yeah, because if you're, if that's not your outbound route, it's weird. Being a being on the application side, like looking at your data and you're the applications don't work. Right. It's just like, it works. It's hit and miss, and it's just such a, it's such a difficult fault to find like something's not working. Right. But you just can't quite gauge what it is. Cause sometimes it does work. Right. And it's just like, oh man, it's like, it's not misfiring kind of deal. But sometimes you fly, right? It's this? Yeah. It's one of the wasp bolts. Cause it's not like it just works or it doesn't work. It's that in-between kind of thing where it kind of what sometimes your friends get to the root bridge, but sometimes they don't depending on where you are in the network. So it's just like, oh, this is just a nightmare to fix.
Pat: 43:07
Yeah. You're trying to find a needle in the needle stack at that point. It's got awful. I've had places where it's just like, oh my God. And that's why I don't like, I dunno, I'm just an old school guy that like manual a lot of things. And spanning tree is one of them. I'm like, look, I'm setting my root bridge. Cause I need to know for sure that the top of the tree is this switch, which I intended it to be like, that's one of the things I'm like an old school. Yeah, I'll get off my lawn guy. I am setting my root bridge to the switch that I know, and it's going to be manual because I know.
Dean: 43:38
And then pick the cards onto the gods, help at the BPD, you got root guards and all that sort of stuff that, that helps and also find if you do come into a spelling, true issue. Like redundancy just gets dropped. Like you can't fix it with redundancy because it's just going to keep spinning and spinning around in that way. So I just, I literally every redundant link I just draw, but realistically I wish architects just built spending tree or networks where they just did port channels so that you wouldn't have to go through. Correct. Just bundle the Paul and then you literally don't want an assistant. Doesn't look as like multiple parts and you're done. Like, I just do that and it's not like it doesn't cost you any money it's free. You can do it across vendors. Like there's tons of. It was an open source or vendor agnostic. So just do that like standard that's
Pat: 44:33
the Cisco way. Yeah. I feel like this discussion happened 20 years ago somewhere, but now I agree. Yeah, it's just, I dunno, I just had more issues as spanning-tree so yeah that's my sort of take on the other new job, new documentation, or I should say new job. Yeah, try to fit into people into the new place he's culture, because everywhere is sort of different. And like how you said you just started on the 14th Valentine's day. And we are recording this on the 24th, so you're about 10 10 days, I should say. So you're still learn to nap, but it's a, I think it's a good perspective of having somebody to want to hear that just changed jobs. And as far as taking us through, okay. You know, you realize your limitations at your old place, you stepped outside your comfort zone, you apply to a new place. He went to the interview process sort of what that looked like. And Hey, you went, you know, and you got the new job. Now it's a whole nother set of challenges of, you know, learning. Your new job, learning the culture that is, you know, that is your new job. And then what that looks like going forward for, you know, your personal goals and then obviously meeting the business goals as well. So kind of talking about that, Kyle do you have any personal goals going forward? I know we talked about sports a little bit ago, but is there anything else, like, whether that's a cert or not, or any other sort of personal goals going forward, say in the next, I don't know the next. Yeah, we'll put a dart at a dartboard timeframe on it, but you have any sort of personal goals or professional goals going forward then
Kyle: 45:56
I was thinking about going back for an advanced degree since, you know, to essentially kind of just there that was one of the interview questions that I had to, it was like about, you know, advancing, you know, both professionally and just personally. And they were like, yeah, we. Definitely encouraged that, you know, obviously we're a university it's about learning and stuff, as well as, you know, obviously, you know, doing the other stuff. And like, if you want to take a class during the day or something like that, we can even kind of work around, you know, the same kind of stuff. And I was like, oh that's amazing. Yeah. It's pretty sweet. So looking at either going back to get my master's or, you know, once I get comfortable, you know, start digging into some stuff.
Pat: 46:44
Nice. that's a good deal. Do you get any like remote work time, Kyle, are you in the office five days a week?
Kyle: 46:51
Pretty much in the office five days a week. They said there is some remote stuff that we could do or D depending if, you know, maybe it's just like data entry or something like that, or, you know, but since we're networking and it, this kind of. If things break, he need hands there.
Pat: 47:09
You gotta be there. Yeah.
Kyle: 47:11
And it's just better that way.
Pat: 47:13
Yeah. No, that's interesting. Where you can just move all your network stuff to the cloud, like me and just work for me. Throw that out there. The next board meeting you'd be out right here. Two weeks. Who does he think he is? AWS. Yeah, you better not go to the U S east one, north Virginia man. Crazy shit going on down there. The hamsters aren't going fast enough. Got to keep a wheel going one keeled over. I'll get another one in here. Did anything else for you and we're right around that hour mark. So we went to
Dean: 47:47
kind of nothing for me, really. Yeah, really a really good catch up with you, Kyle, and really happy to hear that you're a veteran out and doing something new over the last 10 years. I think it's pretty awesome that you're able to move on and. Shut up with our viewers. And if there are any viewers out there who are in a similar situation who have just been grinding it out for sort of a decade or longer, and feel like it's time for a change. Yeah. This should be, it should give you some impetus and some encouragement to let you know that. Yeah, the change is not that difficult is it's difficult, but not impossible. And yeah, there's people out there doing it. So thank you for sharing your story.
Pat: 48:30
Yeah. Yeah. Right on call you big social media guy. You want to tell the people where you can, where they can follow you. I mean, yeah, or
Kyle: 48:39
Instagram, LinkedIn, I dunno. I'll give you the links and stuff. You can put them wherever.
Pat: 48:44
Yeah, if you have questions for Kyle or sort of, you know, know his journey as far as changing jobs or what he sorta went through, we'll put a, we'll put Cal socials in the show notes. So, go hang out there and the hint of cow. So yeah, that's pretty much it. We're going to get out of your hair. Again, I appreciate your hanging with us for. For an hour or so while we do our little our little spiel here, a little piece of the podcast world. So, again thanks for joining this week into the episode here you can join us at, so you want to be an it.com. Everything is their one stop shop for all of our socials. All of our episodes are there again, social links pretty much anything that pertain to the show. An RSS feed that you can subscribe to the show on your favorite platform. So iTunes, Spotify, Google podcasts, Stitcher, overcast, pretty much anywhere. There's a bunch of links on the subscribe tab of the website. There you can. It takes you right to our show on the. Platform. So again, thanks for joining us, Kyle. It's been really cool. Again, tell a friend if you'd like this podcast, if you listen regularly again, if you're a first timer welcome if you are a returning listener, we appreciate you that go tell a friend and we're getting some good traction on Twitter and some of our socialists and stuff. So we're starting to make some some waves in the space. So that's always good. So, socials are out there on our website, go click them a real easy links and whatnot. Our discourse server is also on the website, the listener survey that we have out there for just some general feedback on the show we don't collect any data or sell it or anything like that. And we just we just aggregate it and it just helps us tweak. The show is completely anonymous. That's a S Y w bit.com/. I think it's, there's like 10 questions on there and just general info just helps us to show a little bit. So go take that. And that's it, Dave, you got anything else for
Dean: 50:25
no, nothing else? Really? Just some changes on the show coming up in the near future in terms of some transition, some music, which is going to be polishing some things out. So stay tuned. I'm also a pap smear, more economic discord server. So check that out and that's all I've got really thank you for joining.
Pat: 50:43
Yep. Sounds good guys. So get in Kyle. Thanks again. We'll certainly have you back and do the next time. So everybody. Thanks for joining. We'll see you next week.