Cisco’s advocacy neighborhood, Cisco Insider, brings our clients collectively and offers a means for them to make highly effective connections, broaden their skilled and private networks, and study from prime consultants of their subject. One in all our targets with our advocacy neighborhood is to deepen {our relationships} with our clients. 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 just lately sat down with Mateusz Frąk to study 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 in the present day! Let’s kick issues off by studying a bit of 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 world transport and logistics firm. My function entails implementing, managing, troubleshooting, and enhancing our community automation options. These options are important in a company that gives and manages supply-chain options for hundreds of consumers. 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 crew 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 obtained you began?
My journey started once I was 18 and attending technical faculty. 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 in what actually occurs behind the scenes while 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. Almost three years in the past, I made a decision to pivot into community automation, leveraging the abilities I had constructed through the years. 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 neighborhood, and what has your expertise been like up to now?
I used to be trying to develop into extra related with a neighborhood of pros, 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 power to ask questions on to subject material consultants (SMEs) throughout unique Q&A classes. The responses I’ve acquired from these classes have been extremely insightful, permitting me to enhance my abilities and deal with challenges in my job extra successfully. I’ve additionally related 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 unbelievable method to meet new individuals from across the globe. I actually respect the facility of neighborhood—it’s what helps me get pleasure from demanding processes like getting ready for the DevNet Knowledgeable certification and dealing on difficult tasks. The DevNet Knowledgeable certification demonstrates experience designing and creating community automation options by way of your complete 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 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 revealed Automate Your Community. In his GitHub repository the place the ebook is on the market, he said, “I imagine in open-source software program. I imagine individuals 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 individuals 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 means that’s straightforward to grasp.
I dedicate hours every single day to learning new subjects and applied sciences. As I profit from the free sources shared by Cisco, John, Conor, and plenty of different technical writers, I really feel a powerful want to offer 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 beneficial useful resource for somebody who’s beginning their DevNet Knowledgeable journey. My objective is to assist others really feel much less confused throughout their preparation and the examination itself. I understand how difficult it may be to keep up 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 means 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 sometimes requires in depth 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 cause them to options they hadn’t thought of earlier than.
I even have a dream of writing a technical ebook sometime. I imagine that the method of writing for my weblog will assist me develop the abilities I have to 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 getting ready for such a demanding certification.
After I began my journey, there weren’t many sources accessible that mentioned these facets intimately. My first try was troublesome—not as a result of lack of information, however due to sudden components that affected my efficiency. Being conscious of those small but vital particulars will 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 way of it.
Sooner or later, I’ll additionally share insights from my day by day work to offer a practical view of life in IT. Whereas there are numerous 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 study extra out of your experiences?
In case you’re all for diving deeper into my journey, notably my ongoing DevNet Knowledgeable certification course of, you’ll be able to observe alongside on my weblog at mateuszfrak.com. I often share insights, suggestions, 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 beneficial 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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