Cisco’s advocacy group, Cisco Insider, brings our prospects collectively and supplies a means for them to make highly effective connections, broaden their skilled and private networks, and study from high specialists of their area. Certainly one of our targets with our advocacy group is to deepen {our relationships} with our prospects. Our Q&A sequence permits us to shine a highlight on a few of our most passionate advocates as we study extra about their tales and backgrounds.
We lately sat down with Mateusz Frąk to find out about his journey in community engineering and his ardour for sharing data via his weblog.
Welcome, Mateusz! It’s so nice to talk with you right this moment! Let’s kick issues off by studying just a little bit about who you’re.
Thanks for having me right here! I’m Mateusz, and I work at DSV as a senior community automation engineer. DSV is a worldwide transport and logistics firm. My function includes implementing, managing, troubleshooting, and enhancing our community automation options. These options are crucial in a corporation that gives and manages supply-chain options for hundreds of shoppers. I additionally give attention to figuring out enterprise points, permitting us to develop options that assist community engineers keep away from repetitive duties. We offer numerous instruments that the operations workforce makes use of to troubleshoot networks, leading to sooner isolation of widespread community points.
Are you able to inform us about your journey into community engineering? What bought you began?
My journey started after I was 18 and attending technical college. I used to be uncovered to varied specializations like programming, databases, and networks, and I selected networks as a result of I used to be fascinated by the subject and inquisitive about what actually occurs behind the scenes once you load a webpage like Google.
Through the years, I progressed from a junior community administrator to a community engineer, and ultimately a community architect. As a community architect, I targeted on modernizing an organization’s community by adopting software-defined networks (SDN) for each information heart and campus environments, utilizing Cisco merchandise. Almost three years in the past, I made a decision to pivot into community automation, leveraging the abilities I had constructed over time. This transition allowed me to mix my deep understanding of community engineering with automation, enabling the creation of extra environment friendly and efficient options.
It’s clear that you simply’ve had a formidable profession development. How did you get entangled with the Cisco Insider Advocates group, and what has your expertise been like up to now?
I used to be trying to develop into extra linked with a group of execs, so throughout Cisco Dwell 2024 in Amsterdam, I visited the Insider Advocates sales space. After talking with the group managers, I made a decision to hitch the group.
The best worth of the group, in my view, is the power to ask questions on to material specialists (SMEs) throughout unique Q&A classes. The responses I’ve obtained from these classes have been extremely insightful, permitting me to enhance my expertise and deal with challenges in my job extra successfully. I’ve additionally linked with quite a few SMEs, tapping into their experience and making use of it to the initiatives I’m concerned with at work. Moreover, it’s been a implausible strategy to meet new folks from across the globe. I really recognize the facility of group—it’s what helps me get pleasure from demanding processes like making ready for the DevNet Knowledgeable certification and dealing on difficult initiatives. The DevNet Knowledgeable certification demonstrates experience designing and creating community automation options via the whole community lifecycle, from idea, growth, and deployment to operation and optimization.
Talking of your DevNet Knowledgeable journey, you’ve been documenting your experiences in your weblog at mateuszfrak.com. What motivated you to start out sharing your journey publicly?
I’ve at all times been impressed by professionals who generously share their experiences with others, akin to John Capobianco, who printed Automate Your Community. In his GitHub repository the place the guide is obtainable, he said, “I imagine in open-source software program. I imagine folks ought to have common entry to Linux. I imagine open-source instruments like Ansible ought to stay open supply.” This impressed me to go a step additional and say, “I imagine folks ought to have common entry to data.”
I’ve additionally been impressed by Conor Murphy, a technical options architect at Cisco, who shares technical blogs. He tackles very difficult eventualities and explains them in a means that’s straightforward to know.
I dedicate hours each day to finding out new subjects and applied sciences. As I profit from the free assets shared by Cisco, John, Conor, and lots of different technical writers, I really feel a powerful want to offer again by sharing the data and expertise I collect every day.
What retains you motivated to proceed writing and sharing your journey?
I hope that my weblog will function a priceless useful resource for somebody who’s beginning their DevNet Knowledgeable journey. My purpose is to assist others really feel much less confused throughout their preparation and the examination itself. I understand how difficult it may be to take care of composure in such high-pressure conditions. I additionally need to present that this certification is achievable by anybody who’s constant and devoted.
My weblog can be a means to enhance my technical writing expertise, improve my English, and most significantly, deepen my technical data. Writing content material for a weblog takes time and infrequently requires intensive analysis to create articles that not solely inform, but in addition encourage readers to consider issues from completely different angles. This, in flip, may cause them to options they hadn’t thought-about earlier than.
I even have a dream of writing a technical guide sometime. I imagine that the method of writing for my weblog will assist me develop the abilities I must make that dream a actuality.
What can readers anticipate out of your upcoming weblog posts?
My DevNet Knowledgeable journey continues to be ongoing, and I’m planning to doc my examination makes an attempt quickly, together with ideas and methods for tackling a CCIE-level examination. My purpose is to assist others really feel much less overwhelmed when making ready for such a demanding certification.
Once I began my journey, there weren’t many assets obtainable that mentioned these facets intimately. My first try was troublesome—not as a consequence of lack of understanding, however due to surprising components that affected my efficiency. Being conscious of those small but vital particulars may also help candidates handle their stress ranges higher, particularly in the event that they’ve learn in regards to the expertise of somebody who has been via it.
Sooner or later, I’ll additionally share insights from my every day work to offer a sensible view of life in IT. Whereas there are a lot of blogs that assist IT professionals get began with particular instruments, I need to take it a step additional, discussing the challenges professionals face and providing options that transcend the fundamentals.
Lastly, Mateusz, for these impressed by your journey, the place can they comply with alongside and study extra out of your experiences?
When you’re concerned with diving deeper into my journey, notably my ongoing DevNet Knowledgeable certification course of, you’ll be able to comply with alongside on my weblog at mateuszfrak.com. I repeatedly share insights, ideas, and detailed posts in regards to the challenges and options I encounter. Whether or not you’re making ready for certification, or just trying to broaden your data in community automation, I hope my weblog generally is a priceless useful resource for you.
It’s been a pleasure to talk with you, Mateusz. Thanks once more for becoming a member of us and for being a part of our group!
Learn extra advocate interviews.
You may get pleasure from this interview with Rob Taylor.
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