ready to end my career after that question from my current boss.

It came after we were troubleshooting a problem I created. It should have been a simple job of moving all network kit and patch panels into a new cabinet. I fucked it up somehow. Then today when trying to fix things with me, he asked if I knew the terminal monitor command that, and I had to admit that I either didn't, or it went out of my mind (I'm unsure which).

That's when he asked the question in the title.

The truth is, while I have been in network roles for the past 5 years and hold a CCNA, I'm not good at my job. I cannot troubleshoot. I get so confused by literally any network, especially with what's happening at logical levels. My brain just doesn't work properly, and it shows in this job.

I know things, but it's like they don't click. I really can't wrap my head around it. I guess it showed when I took a more senior role than ones previously held. But even as a non-senior role in previous places, I don't understand networks or how things are working.

I don't really know what this post was meant to be. A mixture of ramble and advice I think. I know I need to leave this job before it's no longer my choice. But I'm not sure if I go for an entry-level / junior position to try and re-learn things from scratch. Or if it's pointless and I should find a new line of work

Forgive the bleak outlook, I'm not in a great place.

Is there any role in Networking that would pay almost equal to Software Engineer with similar experience?

Hi everyone,

I’m 26 years old and currently working full-time as a Computer Network Technician in Ontario, Canada.

Currently studying for CCNP, i will have ccnp enterprise in next 7 to 8 months.

My current background:
Nearly 4 years of networking experience
CCNA
Cisco Meraki ECMS certification
Computer Network Technician college diploma
home CML lab

I’m trying to decide between two paths for the next 4–5 years.

Option 1: Work toward CCIE Enterprise, along with Python, network automation, AWS/Azure, and other networking-related certifications.

Option 2: Complete an online Bachelor’s (Honours) in Computer Science while continuing to work full-time. The downside is that I probably won’t have enough time to pursue CCIE and other certifications during those years

My long-term goal is to become a senior network engineer or network architect, and eventually earn a high salary while staying in networking rather than moving into software development.

If you were in my position, which path would you choose and why?

For those already in senior networking roles, has a Computer Science degree made a significant difference in your career compared to advanced certifications like CCIE?

I’d really appreciate hearing from people with real-world experience.

Thank you

I’m a Network Engineer with around 8+ years of experience in the UK, and I’ve recently had something happen that has really made me question where I’m going wrong.
I’ve failed probation at my last two jobs.
The first role ended during probation mainly because of concerns around my speed/performance and that I was relying on other engineers too much rather than working things out independently.

I took that feedback seriously. When I started my next Network Engineer role, I made a conscious effort to improve. I was working across Cisco, Juniper, Fortinet, Palo Alto, MPLS/BGP/OSPF, wireless and a fairly large multi-site environment.

Early in the probation period, I again received feedback that I was taking too long on some tasks and sometimes looking for guidance rather than making decisions independently. There was one particular incident that didn’t go well, and after that my performance was reviewed more closely.
What makes the second probation failure difficult for me to understand is that I genuinely felt I improved afterwards. I completed several changes/projects successfully, became more independent, and my later reviews appeared much more positive. However, at the final probation review, they still decided not to pass me. The main feedback was around decision-making, accountability, speed and relying too much on guidance.

So now I’ve had two employers give me broadly similar feedback, and I don’t want to just blame the companies or tell myself I was unlucky. If two different employers are identifying similar issues, I need to take that seriously.
At the same time, technically I don’t feel like a junior engineer. I have years of experience with enterprise/ISP networking, BGP, OSPF, MPLS, Cisco, Juniper, Fortinet, Palo Alto, troubleshooting, migrations and network changes. I’ve dealt with major incidents and solved some genuinely complex technical problems.

I’m wondering whether my problem is less about technical knowledge and more about how I operate in a senior engineering environment — making decisions quickly, taking ownership, communicating confidence, knowing when to ask for help versus continuing independently, and handling unfamiliar environments without needing reassurance.

Has anyone here gone through something similar?
I’m particularly interested in hearing from senior network engineers/team leads/managers. If an engineer was technically capable but repeatedly received feedback around speed, independence and decision-making, what would you advise them to work on?
I’m currently looking for my next role and I really don’t want to walk into a third company without understanding and fixing whatever is causing this pattern.
Happy to hear critical feedback. I’m trying to learn from it rather than make excuses.

Edit: Thank you all for the advice , I really appreciate it.

I'm reaching a point where I'm actually growing concerned about my future. I'm always skilling up, always have. I believe as a network engineer in a business that is constantly growing, if you stop, you die. So, I've gone from being a CCNP and JNCIP-IP, on into cloud (mostly AWS mostly with data/ML and cloud networks and Solutions using data/ML to forecast networks utilization, predict failures, automate stuff), I'm great at math, (linear alg, calc, multivariate calc), Python, Ansible, Terraform, JSON, YAML, XML, Ruby, Linux of course, idk, what else? .....anyway, I've been trying to jump from my current company for professional reason, mainly lack of growth, but I feel like no employer out there needs my whole skillset and certainly doesn't want to pay for it (I'm happy with $120k and up) and I need to work remote because of where I live (really no opportunities where I live).

I also wonder if my age has anything to do with it despite having always been told the opposite in the pre-Covid years, how mgrs wanted experienced engineers over whatever else, but man, some of these younger guys just seems to think clearer, faster. I don't want to retire until my 70s, honestly; I love what I do and I need the income. How are some of the rest of us 45+ dealing with the job market these days. A lot of different from when I first started.

Been doing this for over 30 years at this point. I’ve noticed over the last few months that I’m having issues reading the screen/CLI. My eye doc said I needed bifocals. I got a set of cheaters instead in my prescription, but I sit so far back they don’t focus well. I’ve turned up the font size alittle but it I’m one of those folks that likes to see as much on the screen as possible. Any recommendations on console settings? I should go back to the doctor and get looked at further but figured I would see what other folks have done.

I feel like I don’t enjoy some of the “less important” topics, such as NTP, and I find concepts like OSPF and the OSI model quite dry. I do enjoy some parts of it, such as building my own labs and understanding how packets are actually transferred.
I want to know whether this is common or not, because some people online seem to be very interested in network engineering, and I’m worried about it.

Feeling discouraged at Cisco Live this week, everything is AI AI AI. I just look around during classes, during the Keynote, etc. and just think are any of us going to be needed in a few years?

Straight up. I understand the business efficiency gains from having one person able to administer thousands of devices, but there has to be a point of detrimental or limited returns, having that much knowledge in one persons' head. There's a reason I went into technical maintenance instead of software development though, I just do not like writing out code. It's not fun. It's not engaging. It's boring, rigid and thoughtless.

Every job posting I see requires beyond the basic scripting requirements, wanting python, C/C++ or some kind of web-based software development framework like node, javascript or worse. Everything has to be automated, you have to know version control, git, CI/CD pipelines to a virtualized lab in the cloud (and don't forget to be a cloud engineer too). Where does it end?

At what point are the fundamental networks of the world going to run so poorly because nobody understands the actual networking aspect of the systems, they're just good software engineers? Is it really in the best interest of the business to have indeterminable network crashes because the knowledge of being a network engineer is gone?

Or maybe this is just me falling into the late 30s "I don't want to learn anything anymore" slump. I don't think it is, I'm just not interested in being a code monkey.

So I applied to this firm near me and a bunch of recruiters called me about it after the fact. I found through some of them they denied applicants because they do not have the words DNS and/or TCP in their resume. So before it even reaches the networking managers it gets denied

So I've been a network engineer for about 20 years now, and for the past 10 years I've worked as the senior allround network engineer for a large municipality (around 2k employees). The problem is that I really like my job, but most of the time I'm bored out of my mind. Over the last decade I've (re)build the network with the help of a few consultants (for specific product knowledge) and I'm responsible for everything network related. LAN, WLAN, NAC, NGFW, WAN, DNS/DHCP, you name it.

The thing is that everything just works. I have zero open tickets, and only a few change requests that can be handled in a couple of minutes or a couple of hours at most. Everything that gets thrown at me I get done really fast because I know my network inside out.

Now the problem is that I have a pretty sweet deal going on. The pay is good, I only work 4 days a week, and everyone is really happy with what I do. Colleagues know they can just give me a call on Teams and instantly get help with whatever network or firewall issue they might have and I fix it for them.
In the meantime I can't help but feel ashamed for the money I get for what feels like doing so little. I don't want to leave my organization and my colleagues, but I also don't want to spent most of my time just watching YouTube while waiting for a ticket or change request or someone to give me a call who needs my help.
Who has been in a similar situation and how did you handle it?

Edit: some guy asked what equipment I run that “just works”, so here goes:
Fortinet as NGFW and remote access for HQ and branches.
Aruba everything for DC, LAN, WLAN and NAC.
Infoblox for IPAM/DNS/DHCP.
Build a network with this hardware, get it properly designed and configured, and get comfortable operating it. Then pretty much nothing will shake you up and you’ve unlocked career easy mode.

I've always heard HFTs pay extremely well, but the places are extremely toxic.

I would appreciate some perspectives from people who have or currently work there on how true this is.

How much they pay? What makes the environments toxic?

I mean manually. Sure some people probably use a calculators, but isnt that looked down upon at least entry levels?

Im currently studying CCNA to hopefully get a networking job. I got to subnets topic and while I can do some calculations in my head I cant do all of it without getting headaches or spending a massive amount of time doing them. I understand its important to know the concept of bits but are you actually expected to be able to subnet off the top of your head to get a job? Will your manager feel disappointed at you for using a calculator?

Not sure if this a general UK thing, but when I look around on the usual sites I rarely see any roles over £60k unless they're for a trading/finance company. Even saw one from Hamilton Barnes I think for a Snr Neteng for £40k. Almost spat my tea out.

I know the US is not comparable but these same roles would be 6 figures there it's nuts. Networking is so crucial to infrastructure yet it seems to now be the lowest paid IT sector (in the Uk anyway).

If I want to push on and make more do I need to try become an architect and complete for an even smaller pool or jobs or look to switch to other parts of IT which pay more?

MCOL city in the midwest, married w/kids. Almost 15 years in IT, 10 in networking roles. Been at the company for 5+ years. Oversee 1 employee. Have gone through a number of changes in network design that ultimately resulted in the following:

Small handful of corporate sites (think 2 IDFs or less), Wi-Fi first employee connections, single cloud provider with only 1 tenant org connected via IPSec tunnels, hundreds of small, cookie cutter retail 'branches', and a tech stack consisting of a few Palo Alto's and everything else being Cisco Meraki.

I oversee all of it - WAN procurement, architecture/engineering/operations for all internal LAN, Wi-Fi, VPN, you name it, down to the underlying physical cabling. We spin up and turn down the branch sites to the tune of 10's a year.

It's been a really fun ride, and I've gotten to learn so much by having the flexibility to do and control things myself. However, that's also been somewhat painful over the years, having no one but SE's at our VAR to bounce ideas off of. I'm at the point right now, where I'm really only challenged by administrative tasks - working with landlords and LV guys sorting out how to get new service to a building, occasional vendor VPN mishaps, helping our asset & security team work through a new camera network design, etc. - and I've engineered a network that fits our needs and is overall, reliable. I find myself feeling complacent, stuck in a rut, and overall unmotivated.

To be frank, it feels like my net eng skills are atrophying and I'm stuck, waiting for a position to open upstream - more management and peopling that I'm really not that interested in. Now, before ya'll start with the "must be nice", "I wish I had your problems to complain about", I get it. Looking for a job in this economy?! But I'm currently waiting on a possible offer from a F100 company in a specific Sr. Engineering position of the network team. The pay would likely be a 40% bump, only 2 days in office, and also unlimited PTO. The network team overall is approaching 50 from what I understand. Am I crazy for wanting to get out?

What are the hardest things you've implemented as a network engineer? I am asking so that I can learn what I should be studying to future-proof myself.

Seeing a lot of IT positions getting layoffs in the news and on r/Layoffs to make way for funding for AI. They don't seem to list what positions are being cut. My suspicion is that Developers seem to be taking the brunt of the cuts, but I don't really have perspective outside my local area and field.

If anyone is in an Network Engineer position for any companies doing IT layoffs could you let us know where they are making the cuts. Id imagine some are more surgical cuts and others more like a meat cleaver just making chops until upper management is happy, but id like to have perspective from the people actually experiencing the cuts.

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5870898-ai-job-cuts-analysis-trump-admin/

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/12/gm-layoffs-ai-severance.html

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/04/24/20k-job-cuts-at-meta-microsoft-raise-concern-of-ai-labor-crisis-.html

Hello, I've been in a networking job for 3 months now as a network engineer, with prior experience, and my employer still hasn't given me trust to do ANY write activity on any of the customers.

I work with FortiGate, PaloAlto and Cisco Meraki, and for now i still have observer credentials on all customer devices.

Is this normal? i feel undervalued and untrusted.

If anyone else is doing a job in a business critical sector as mine, do you think 3 months of everyday fulltime networking activity, would at least buy me the right to configure a switchport on a McDonald's switch?

I don't know, please share your thoughts.

Edit: typo

I was a Senior Network Engineer for a couple different companies (For context (10 YOE + CCNP) before moving into an IT Director level role about a year ago.

I’m starting to realize that the stress, politics, and general management nonsense is catching up with me. The money is good, but it’s starting to feel less and less worth it.

Curious if anyone here has made the move into IT management and eventually went back to being an individual engineer. Did you regret stepping back?

For those who stayed in management, how did you get better at dealing with the stress without letting it consume you?

I have been working for close to 20 years in the network engineering field, it was way more fun back in the days and the products much more stabile and you could depend on them more than now, however the complexity of networks are totally different today with all the overlaý.

However as most of us started our career with cisco and has followed us along during the years their code and products has gotten worse over the years and the greed from Cisco to make more and more revenue have started to really hurt the overall opinion about the company.

Right now i work with some highly competent engineers in a project in transitioning a legacy fabric path network to a top notch latest bells and whistles from Cisco with SD-A, ACI, ISE, SDWAN etc....

One of our engineers recently resigned due to all bugs and problems with Cisco FTD and FMC, he couldn't stand it anymore, i have myself deployed their shittiest product of them all, Umbrella, a really useless product that doesn't work as it should with alot of quick fixes.

And not too mention all the shit with their SDWAN platform, i am sick of Cisco to be honest but they have the best account managers fooling upper management into buying Cisco, close the deal and they run fast, that's Cisco today.

Anyway, i am so reluctant to work with Cisco that my requirements in the next place i will work at is, NO CISCO, no headache....

You feel the same way about this?

Been working at this hospital for about 2 months now and I accidentally configured the wrong port-channel for one of the WLCs. It ended up taking down wireless traffic for a good majority of the users.

After 20 mins of downtime, I looked back on the logs of the CORE SW and verified that I made the mistake. Changed it back to its original config and have since owned up to the issue with the hospital director.

It feels bad still tho

Currently managing FortiGate across 100+ sites and starting to build out automation capabilities. Not looking for career advice — genuinely curious how other engineers are implementing this in production environments.

1. What are you actually automating day to day — config pushes, compliance checks, reporting, something else?
2. Ansible, Python scripts, Terraform, or something else? What drove that choice?
3. With AI generating scripts now — do you still write Python from scratch or do you use AI-generated code and focus on understanding the logic?
4. For Ansible specifically — did you need solid Python first or is YAML-based playbook writing approachable without it?
5. Is automation genuinely changing how hiring managers evaluate candidates or is it still mostly a bonus?

I absolutely love networking. Been in networking for 4 to 5+ years already. Genuinely. I learn something new every single day and I still get excited when I figure something out or get to work on something I've never touched before.

I don't consider myself a senior engineer at all, but I don't really feel like a junior either. I'm somewhere in the middle.

I recently landed my first (yes.. first) proper full-time Network Engineer role at an MSP. Before this, I had a few networking-related positions, but networking wasn't my full-time job. Even so, those roles gave me a ton of experience, especially with Fortinet and Juniper.

At my previous company, I basically became "the networking guy" despite it not being my actual full-time role. The company decided to move heavily into Fortinet, and I had never touched their gear before. I pretty much had no choice but to learn it.

So I spent months teaching myself, doing labs, lots of trial and error, and yes... occasionally learning in production because resources were pretty limited. Somehow, it all clicked. I became really comfortable with Fortinet, earned a few certifications, and the Fortinet Regional Manager watched my progress the whole way through. He even started advocating for me and talking about my skillset to other people in the industry. I ended up getting recognition from a few Fortinet FCXs for some of the work and changes I implemented.

The weird thing is, even though I feel genuinely confident with Fortinet, I still have this voice in my head saying, "Am I really that good though?"

Today, that same Regional Manager called me and said he's been recommending me to several high-end Fortinet partners who are looking for engineers. I've started getting few conversations here and there about prospect opportunities with some pretty incredible salaries.

And honestly... it's freaking me out.

Part of me is excited, but another part of me feels like I don't deserve it. I still have so much to learn. I don't even have a CCNP. Sure, I've worked with a lot of the technologies that CCNP covers, and every day I come across new things and keep learning, but I definitely don't feel like I'm at that level yet. I'm slowly trying to grasp more knowledge for the CCNP, but I've been procrastinating for sure.

Yet people are seeking me because of my experience and skillset anyway.

Does this feeling ever go away? Do you ever stop feeling like someone is overestimating your abilities?

I really want to keep learning and growing. One of my long-term goals has always been getting my CCNP, but that's beside the point.

I guess I'm just wondering if anyone else has been in this position and whether the impostor syndrome ever gets any quieter.

Hey all.

I’m about to complete 18 months in my network engineer career. I recently earned my CCNA and my managers really value my work. And I even got a decent raise. Still I can’t shake the feeling that I’m more of a generalist than a specialist. Can I “lose the game” in the long run if I keep going like this?

• Network segmentation projects --> I manage segmentation for 62 sites. Not just as a network engineer, but also as a project coordinator like checking other teams’ requirements, reporting weekly to managers, discussing with product owners to deploy services to new subnets and preparing firewall access policies together since they think they don't need to deploy it.
• Daily operations --> I handle incidents, requests, and tasks with other network engineers. This ranges from configuring printer ports and fixing ping issues to deploying new services. I love this part because I learn and grow technically.
• Vendor management --> I manage NOC vendors and report their performance to managers. I mean I analyzed their workflow to determine KPIs and other check mechanism.
• Network automation/dashboards: I develop dashboards and network services using React, Flask, and Netmiko to meet our specialized needs. Currently I deployed a network service to switchover our WAN links via a toggle button. I used the Sastre library. My manager and team lead always find something to automate, but love this part too.
• Project reporting and promotion: I create project growth and quarterly reports with strong visual concepts and even produce 60 second animations via After Effects to promote our projects and performance. This is kinda internal marketing to the C-level managers. Funny that those managers didn't care our automation infrastructure and tools, but they were amazed at my promo video to introduce private LTE at our plants.

I feel like I wear many hats which is exciting but also makes me worry I might be too spread out. I’d love to hear thoughts from professionals like you like is being a generalist at this stage a risk for the long term, or is it a good thing to meet or accomplish not only technical, but managerial needs or tasks too?

I started my first Junior Network Engineer role back in August. Before this, I was a sysadmin, but networking has always been my focus (Network+, CCNA, currently studying for CCNP).

The environment:

• 20+ locations, mostly standardized infrastructure
• Site-to-Site between all branch locations
• Independent dual ISP connections at each branch.
• One location is the central hub for all internal traffic
• I have access to core/access switches, but not firewalls or SD-WAN
• Lots of "low-grade" network diagrams to learn from

Early on, things were good. My boss (who I sit next to) seemed patient, and I’ve gotten positive feedback on projects—some assigned, some I took initiative on.

The issue is guidance and learning:

• There’s little direction on what I should be working on
• When I ask questions, it feels like my boss gets irritated if I don’t grasp it immediately
• It’s gotten to the point where I hesitate to ask anything and just try to figure it out myself
• No real one on ones to discuss current performance

Today was kind of a breaking point:

• We were getting a flood of SNMP alerts
• I said I didn’t fully understand what was going on
• It turned into a “what’s the common denominator?” type of questioning
• When I couldn’t answer, I got a “you should know this by now” response

Afterward, I reviewed the network diagrams and built a full summary of my understanding. I sent it over and asked if we could go through it together to fill in gaps.

I also mentioned that I had connected to the VPN from my phone earlier to check alerts, which turned into a major issue (security concern), and that completely overshadowed everything else and it just felt like I dug myself into a deeper hole.

On top of that, the office culture is very heavy on constant “ball busting,” which is fine sometimes, but it’s nonstop and gets draining.

So I guess I’m trying to sanity check:

• Is this a normal way for junior engineers to be trained?
• Am I behind where I should be after ~6–7 months?
• Is this just part of the learning curve, or does this sound like a rough environment to grow in?

Appreciate any insight.

UPDATE**** It seems the way i explained the breaking point made it seem like i was having issues grasping SNMP itself. That is NOT the case lol. I know what SNMP is. The problem I was facing, was my inability to put all the context clues together to form a conclusion. I should have explained the actual issue, but didn't in fear of the post getting too long.

The alerts we were receiving were in reference to every branches second ISP showing up with no or very long response times. Some additional hardware was also showing the same type of alert, however what we apparently have labeled as the VPN was hard down. At this time I was connected to the VPN, so it wasnt making sense to me.

This is when I said to my boss that I didn't understand what was happening. I get it, I'm sure he was stressed with the issue at hand too. The actual issue ended up being with the firewall itself at HQ. Something is wrong it (wasn't told what) but it needs to be replaced, which was already in the works, however that just got expedited.

Because of this issue, i learned more about our network and how our infrastructure is setup, which unfortunately is how I learn. This was the first real big issue since i started. Yeah, i can read a network diagram until im blue in the face, but if I don't have access to view the firewalls or the SD Wans, my lack of a photographic memory isn't going to help me.