I'm definitely in that camp as well :-) In my experience the path of least resistance is to get a junior network engineer and mentor he/she into improving his/hers programming skills than go the other way around.
s2 C. On 2/27/12 6:22 PM, Owen DeLong wrote: > I think you're more likely to find a network engineer with (possibly limited) > programming skills. > > That's certainly where I would categorize myself. > > Owen > > On Feb 27, 2012, at 12:02 PM, Brandt, Ralph wrote: > >> Generalists are hard to come by these days. They are people who learn >> less and less about more and more till they know nothing about >> everything. People today are specializing in the left and right halves >> of the bytes.... They learn more and more about less and less till they >> know everything about nothing. And BTW, they are worthless unless you >> have five of them working on a problem because none of them know enough >> to fix it. Worse, you can replace the word five with fifty and it may >> be still true. >> >> I know of three of these, all gainfully employed at this time and could >> each find at least a couple jobs if they wanted. I am one, my son is >> two and a guy we worked with is the third. >> >> At one time (40 years ago) the mantra in IS was train for expertise, now >> it is hire for it. Somewhere there has to be a happy medium. I suggest >> this, find a good coder, not a mediocre who writes shit code but a good >> one who can think and learn and when you talk about branching out with >> his skill set he or she lights up. His first thing on site is take the >> A+ networking course. >> >> No, I do not sell the courses. But I have seen this kind of approach >> work when nothing else was. >> >> >> >> >> Ralph Brandt >> Communications Engineer >> HP Enterprise Services >> Telephone +1 717.506.0802 >> FAX +1 717.506.4358 >> Email ralph.bra...@pateam.com >> 5095 Ritter Rd >> Mechanicsburg PA 17055 >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: A. Pishdadi [mailto:apishd...@gmail.com] >> Sent: Sunday, February 26, 2012 8:27 PM >> To: NANOG >> Subject: Programmers with network engineering skills >> >> Hello All, >> >> i have been looking for quite some time now a descent coder (c,php) who >> has >> a descent amount of system admin / netadmin experience. Doesn't >> necessarily >> need to be an expert at network engineering but being acclimated in >> understanding the basic fundamentals of networking. Understanding basic >> routing concepts, how to diagnose using tcpdump / pcap, understanding >> subnetting and how bgp works (not necessarily setting up bgp). I've >> posted >> job listings on the likes of dice and monster and have not found any >> good >> canidates, most of them ASP / Java guys. >> >> If anyone can point me to a site they might recommend for job postings >> or >> know of any consulting firms that might provide these services that >> would >> be greatly appreciated. >