Well here's a thread certain to start a fire, but I thought I'd see what
would happen.
Does the community feel that Cisco Certifications are still in demand in the
market place? Do they still get you through the door in anything?
I have been in the IT field for the better part of 8 years. This year, I
will be pulling in about 5K short of 100K, and I have a very short list of
certifications which I rarely use in the network security and development
position I'm in. I work for a very large, if not the largest IT shop in the
world, and I am a little disoriented by what is seen as really important
inside this organization. I have some level of respect for this
organization because of it's sheer size and some of the industry giants and
experts I work on teams with. However it doesn't seem that certification
matters. All of the top tier architects, the "Gods" of the "Gods" are all
undoubtedly very good at what they do, and rumor has it they are paid
handsomely(much more than me), but a quick direct survey of these rather
humble people, and I find that they have just been around for forever and
seem to know near everything, especially about the business aspect of
things, but don't carry any certifications that some deem so important to
get(though I have no doubt they would pass if they were forced to take the
tests). Yet they are crucial to the organization, and would probably be
considered "lifers", meaning they would never leave the organization.
So, as you may understand, seeing this every day, you might imagine why I am
so disillusioned and pose this question. If I don't see certifications
meaning anything inside the organization I'm part of right now, what do
others see certifications worth in their world, their work, their area? Is
the playing field different "on the outside"? Does organization size make
the difference? Do certifications matter more in an organization of 50 , or
in one with 50 thousand people?
I guess the other confusing aspect is that I use my skills diffrently now
than I did before. It used to matter that I could sit down on a bunch of
routers or switches and configure (provision them when they are not ciscos)
and make them do anything under the sun. Now that's considered a less
valuable "production" type work, and the design,testing, project management,
policy writting, and architecture work I do is for some reason considered
more important than all that "lesser", and once crucial "production" work?
Now I spend my days testing and designing new infrastructres, and once my
documentation and design is done and approved, people, they call them "I.T.
Specialists and "Junior Network Architects" sometimes getting paid a whole
lot less (almost half less) go out there and actually implement it
worldwide. Yes, I'm still called upon to analyize things when they go
wrong, and help out with the roll-outs, but somehow I pictured that I would
be touching more routers, not authoring documents of policy, design, and
architecture. (ok so maybe I'm having trouble adjusting, but I spent many
long nights study this sh** to be an expert at it, all the time envisioning
that I would be building and deploying networks, actually using this sh**,
to make a living, but what ended up happening is that I use maybe 20% of
that knowledge, and the rest of the stuff I actually get paid for has almost
nothing to do with any certification or education path)
All the CCIE cisco certifications seem to be geared torwards doing this type
of "production" work, do CCIE's really use those skills in production once
they receive their CCIE? Do they even touch a router anymore?
Here's why I ask this, the one CCIE I personally know, he's the CIO at the
site for the organization that I work for. He approves security policy for
the entire organization world wide, but it's probably been a long time since
he has even had to touch a router, switch, or firewall. (that's the job of
people like me, we go out, test the latest and greatest, create proposals,
and them submit them to him to get approved) (though I should probably ask
him on monday in passing, when the last time he sat at a console actually
was) I kid not, he is simply amazing, and he know's everything, and has this
scary guru type knowledge on networking and security, but I still hold that
I seriously doubt he uses any of the "production" type knowledge that the
cisco ccie lab tests for on a day-to-day basis.
That all makes it seem, that the concepts and years of expereince mean more
than the actuall cert, in this organization, but I wonder it it's the same
everywhere else. Now, I'm sure that this CCIE has spent his years doing the
"production" work, but is the natural progression of things such that once
you get the high tier certifications, that you move on to upper management,
and the type of work you end up doing is less and less hands on techincal
and more and more business related?
Another CCIE I've heard of, works in denver as a sales engineer for juniper
networks. In fact, juniper is one of the companies we are testing for
replacing some devices that aren't handling the load requierments of our
latest infrastructure(And I guess I'll probably end up working with this guy
when we get permission to actually talk to juniper). Here's this CCIE,
who's job is to tag along with salesmen of juniper equipment, and be there
to just dole out knowledge and insight on a perpective customer's needs, and
how juniper equipment can fit it, in a mostly cisco world. But the point
is, he too probably (and I guess) seldomly touches a router anymore.
Probably spends alot of time writting proposals, making drawings, and
looking at architectures and design than anything else.
CCIE's are expensive to hire, I guess it makes sense to use them for the
most critical work, and leave the "grunt" work for other, less expensive
workers, but I guess my point is that the "grunt" work used to be fun
sometimes. When you get a CCIE or such, do you still get to play?
Somehow I figured things would be different.
Message Posted at:
http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=10599&t=10599
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