Cisco’s advocacy neighborhood, Cisco Insider, brings our prospects collectively and gives a manner for them to make highly effective connections, develop their skilled and private networks, and study from high specialists of their subject. One among our targets with our advocacy neighborhood is to deepen {our relationships} with our prospects. Our Q&A collection permits us to shine a highlight on a few of our most passionate advocates as we study extra about their tales and backgrounds.
We just lately sat down with Mateusz Frąk to find out about his journey in community engineering and his ardour for sharing information by way of his weblog.
Welcome, Mateusz! It’s so nice to talk with you at present! Let’s kick issues off by studying a bit 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 position includes implementing, managing, troubleshooting, and enhancing our community automation options. These options are important in a corporation that gives and manages supply-chain options for hundreds of consumers. I additionally concentrate on 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 quicker isolation of frequent 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 varied 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 whenever you load a webpage like Google.
Through the years, 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 information heart and campus environments, utilizing Cisco merchandise. Practically 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 powerful profession development. How did you get entangled with the Cisco Insider Advocates neighborhood, and what has your expertise been like to this point?
I used to be seeking to turn into extra linked with a neighborhood of execs, so throughout Cisco Stay 2024 in Amsterdam, I visited the Insider Advocates sales space. After talking with the neighborhood managers, I made a decision to hitch the neighborhood.
The best worth of the neighborhood, in my view, is the power to ask questions on to subject 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 abilities 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 solution to meet new folks from across the globe. I actually respect the facility of neighborhood—it’s what helps me get pleasure from demanding processes like making ready for the DevNet Knowledgeable certification and dealing on difficult tasks. The DevNet Knowledgeable certification demonstrates experience designing and growing community automation options by way of all the community lifecycle, from idea, improvement, 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 begin sharing your journey publicly?
I’ve all the time been impressed by professionals who generously share their experiences with others, equivalent to John Capobianco, who revealed Automate Your Community. In his GitHub repository the place the e-book is offered, he acknowledged, “I consider in open-source software program. I consider folks ought to have common entry to Linux. I consider open-source instruments like Ansible ought to stay open supply.” This impressed me to go a step additional and say, “I consider 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 situations and explains them in a manner that’s straightforward to grasp.
I dedicate hours each day to finding out new matters 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 want to provide 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 invaluable useful resource for somebody who’s beginning their DevNet Knowledgeable journey. My objective is to assist others really feel much less harassed 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 also be a manner to enhance my technical writing abilities, improve my English, and most significantly, deepen my technical information. Writing content material for a weblog takes time and infrequently requires in depth analysis to create articles that not solely inform, but additionally encourage readers to consider issues from totally different angles. This, in flip, would possibly cause them to options they hadn’t thought-about earlier than.
I even have a dream of writing a technical e-book sometime. I consider that the method of writing for my weblog will assist me develop the abilities I must make that dream a actuality.
What can readers count on 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 suggestions and techniques for tackling a CCIE-level examination. My objective 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 out there that mentioned these points intimately. My first try was tough—not attributable to lack of information, however due to sudden components that affected my efficiency. Being conscious of those small but important particulars can assist candidates handle their stress ranges higher, particularly in the event that they’ve learn concerning the expertise of somebody who has been by way of it.
Sooner or later, I’ll additionally share insights from my day by day work to provide a practical view of life in IT. Whereas there are numerous 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 observe alongside and study extra out of your experiences?
When you’re occupied with diving deeper into my journey, notably my ongoing DevNet Knowledgeable certification course of, you possibly can observe alongside on my weblog at mateuszfrak.com. I recurrently share insights, suggestions, and detailed posts concerning the challenges and options I encounter. Whether or not you’re making ready for certification, or just seeking to develop your information in community automation, I hope my weblog generally is a invaluable 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 neighborhood!
Learn extra advocate interviews.
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