Cisco’s advocacy neighborhood, Cisco Insider, brings our clients collectively and gives a approach for them to make highly effective connections, broaden their skilled and private networks, and be taught from prime specialists of their area. Certainly one of our targets with our advocacy neighborhood is to deepen {our relationships} with our clients. Our Q&A collection permits us to shine a highlight on a few of our most passionate advocates as we be taught extra about their tales and backgrounds.
We lately sat down with Mateusz Frąk to study his journey in community engineering and his ardour for sharing information by means of his weblog.
Welcome, Mateusz! It’s so nice to speak with you at present! Let’s kick issues off by studying just a little bit about who you might be.
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 entails implementing, managing, troubleshooting, and enhancing our community automation options. These options are crucial in a company 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 varied instruments that the operations workforce makes use of to troubleshoot networks, leading to quicker isolation of widespread community points.
Are you able to inform us about your journey into community engineering? What received you began?
My journey started once I was 18 and attending technical college. I used to be uncovered to numerous specializations like programming, databases, and networks, and I selected networks as a result of I used to be fascinated by the subject and interested by what actually occurs behind the scenes if you load a webpage like Google.
Over time, I progressed from a junior community administrator to a community engineer, and finally a community architect. As a community architect, I targeted on modernizing an organization’s community by adopting software-defined networks (SDN) for each knowledge middle and campus environments, utilizing Cisco merchandise. Practically three years in the past, I made a decision to pivot into community automation, leveraging the talents 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 just’ve had a formidable profession development. How did you get entangled with the Cisco Insider Advocates neighborhood, and what has your expertise been like up to now?
I used to be trying to turn into extra linked with a neighborhood of execs, so throughout Cisco Reside 2024 in Amsterdam, I visited the Insider Advocates sales space. After talking with the neighborhood managers, I made a decision to affix the neighborhood.
The best worth of the neighborhood, in my view, is the flexibility to ask questions on to material specialists (SMEs) throughout unique Q&A periods. The responses I’ve acquired from these periods have been extremely insightful, permitting me to enhance my expertise and sort out 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 tasks I’m concerned with at work. Moreover, it’s been a implausible option to meet new folks from across the globe. I really admire the facility of neighborhood—it’s what helps me get pleasure from demanding processes like getting ready for the DevNet Skilled certification and dealing on difficult tasks. The DevNet Skilled certification demonstrates experience designing and creating community automation options by means of the whole community lifecycle, from idea, growth, and deployment to operation and optimization.
Talking of your DevNet Skilled 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 all the time been impressed by professionals who generously share their experiences with others, reminiscent of 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 information.”
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 approach that’s simple to know.
I dedicate hours day-after-day to learning 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 robust need to present again by sharing the information 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 Skilled journey. My purpose is to assist others really feel much less pressured 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 wish to present that this certification is achievable by anybody who’s constant and devoted.
My weblog can also be a approach to enhance my technical writing expertise, improve my English, and most significantly, deepen my technical information. Writing content material for a weblog takes time and sometimes requires intensive analysis to create articles that not solely inform, but in addition encourage readers to consider issues from totally different angles. This, in flip, would possibly make them options they hadn’t thought of 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 talents I have to make that dream a actuality.
What can readers count on out of your upcoming weblog posts?
My DevNet Skilled journey remains 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 getting ready for such a demanding certification.
After I began my journey, there weren’t many assets out there that mentioned these features intimately. My first try was troublesome—not because of lack of information, however due to sudden components that affected my efficiency. Being conscious of those small but important particulars might 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 by means of it.
Sooner or later, I’ll additionally share insights from my each day work to present a practical view of life in IT. Whereas there are lots of blogs that assist IT professionals get began with particular instruments, I wish 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 observe alongside and be taught extra out of your experiences?
In case you’re keen on diving deeper into my journey, significantly my ongoing DevNet Skilled certification course of, you possibly can observe 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 getting ready for certification, or just trying to broaden your information in community automation, I hope my weblog is usually a priceless useful resource for you.
It’s been a pleasure to speak with you, Mateusz. Thanks once more for becoming a member of us and for being a part of our neighborhood!
Learn extra advocate interviews.
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