If you follow IT discussions, and stay abreast with news and industry trends, you’d know that a spot of concern has emerged around the viability of network engineering as a career.
Frustration is trickling down from the topmost levels as responsibilities around the role have shifted over the years. Many have started to look at it as a dead-end job.
From being a booming career path, how did network engineering end up a shrinking niche? At the recent Networking Field Day event, Tom Hollingsworth, former network engineer, and event lead of the Tech Field Day event series, sits down with network engineer, Andy Lapteff, and network architect, Remington Loose, to get the insider’s view.
From an Unsinkable Career to a Dying Profession
Lapteff hosts a podcast, The Art of Network Engineering, that focuses on tools, technologies and everyday people in IT. Having the opportunity to meet and interact with people from the networking world every day on the show, Lapteff knows that there is no smoke without fire.
“Something has been on my mind for a while,” he says. “I’ve been in tech about 15 years. When I got in, I was really excited about it. It was a great career, promised a lot of growth. Everything was connected to the network. The number of connected devices were almost like Moore’s law – doubling every year.”
That enthusiasm has dulled lately. “Over the past ten years, it just feels less and less like a good career choice,” he says with a hint of frustration in his voice.
Among working professionals, networking is no longer seen as an incentivizing career. Many have deflected to other areas of IT causing the population to dwindle rapidly.
“When we get into the nitty gritty of the network, what it is supporting and how it functions and what it does, a lot of the folks tune out or turn off or do not want to go into that field,” Loose points out.
Seemingly, their hesitance stems from an influx of new opportunities in other more up and coming niches that are deemed more glamorous and more promising. Cybersecurity, software development, and AI/ML are prime examples.
A Gradual Regression
There is a history behind how network engineering as a career got here. For the rest of IT, the plumbing and maintenance works that happens under the hood are good as invisible. It is something that is taken for granted as long as the lights turn on when the switch is flipped.
This, exacerbated by long working hours, tight deadlines, and stressful work situations, contributed to making networking an exacting, but thankless job.
In sharp contrast, careers like AI specialist, cybersecurity analyst and software developer are thriving. People joining and working in these areas are touted as the heroes of IT. They are seen, heard about, and cheered every day.
But glory in workplace is never handed out on a silver platter, less so in a competitive field like IT. It is something that is earned with hard work and sweat.
“People want to skip to the end and get to the part where they’re making lots of money, driving a fancy car, and are well-respected, but that respect is not given, its earned,” reminds Tom Hollingsworth.
New niches may woo the crowd easily, but it is worth remembering that these jobs are not without trials and tribulations. The initial struggles are just as real as it is in networking.
The Shock of Change
Looking back, network engineers too enjoyed elevated status, much like AI engineers and cybersecurity specialists today, in the early 2000s when connectivity speeds were just picking up.
“It took a market crash to shake everything out,” he says. “Network engineering is still reeling from the last few readjustments, and nobody sees it as the thing that they want to do. The people who do it, see it as the thing they are doing and therefore they’re defending their turf as it were.”
There has been pushback on hiring as many network engineers as before in enterprises. Several factors account for this.
The dominos started to fall with the uptick of cloud. White-glove service models shrunk the role of network engineers overnight.
“A lot of the network engineering component has either been commoditized out because we’re consuming it through cloud, or has been moved into a different role that’s handled by someone else,” Loose says. “It’s no longer what we have historically called “network engineering”. In a lot of environments, we don’t have to do that much real engineering the way that we did before”
The cloud’s business model made small and medium enterprises question the need for these professionals. Layoffs and job cuts in networking have increased over the years as businesses have switched to the cloud operational model.
Behind the curtain, decision-makers and people in C-suite have started to favor automation solutions over hiring new network engineers.
“If decision-makers at Fortune100 companies are asking how many network engineers they can get rid of if they buy automation platforms, how can you ignore that?” asks Lapteff.
The need for “artisanal networking” is fading as vendors are baking in more engineering in the hardware. “The infrastructure has gotten good enough,” Loose says. “Switching capacity is enough. You don’t really have to replace as much, or do as much maintenance once it gets in. Wi-Fi is up and functioning; no one needs to touch it.”
Many complex networking jobs have been automated in an effort to make the network reliable, and to reduce costs. As a result, the incentive to pursue networking engineering has reduced significantly among people entering IT.
“For a lot of those junior folks, to get started in simpler, more basic environments which we all potentially had, the opportunity to do so is going away.”
Reviving Networking Engineering for a New Generation of Workers
All said and done, networking engineering is a well-paid job, and there are still ample openings to bring in fresh candidates. Like any other field, it promises education, experience and connections. But a concerted effort must be made by those in the profession to turn the tide.
Much can be achieved if existing professionals take to mentoring and motivating younger professionals assuring them of the promises and prospects of the field. The panel advises veteran network engineers to embrace a positive and welcoming attitude instead of exhibiting a cold and intimidating demeanor.
Fostering a culture of support and collaboration goes a long way in getting new people interested. By contrast, pulling a U-turn, midway in the career, is infinitely harder. After all, looking for a new job is in itself a full-time job.
Be sure to watch the Tech Field Day podcast – Network Engineering Is a Dying Profession – to listen to the full discussion.
