How To Decipher Which NOC Positions Are Challenging

Hello everyone,

I am approaching 9 months of my year contract and I wanted to start slowly applying for positions again to get a head start and put some feelers out there.

My focus is either Junior Admin or a NOC position. I have heard stories of crazy graveyard shifts and people playing games like it's a low paying security guard position.

My question for all you NOC technicians out there and others that are knowledgeable; how does one tell which NOC position will offer a challenging next step in ones networking career? What are some good responsibilities to look for? I am fearful that if I were to accept a position, it might be one of the horror stories.

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Comments

shodown

you just have to apply and ask. The job description can mention it, but when you interview you find out what they really want. For my Tier 3 NOC NOC positon, the Interview was much harder than the next 3 Sr network engineer positions. That interview was a sign of that this would be more than a just answer the phone job.

Somnipotent

I'd look for positions that indicate more troubleshooting rather than strictly reactive surveillance. Most of the time you will be generating, responding to, and updating tickets with minimal, often read-only access to devices. I wouldn't call them challenging positions by any means as anyone can be trained and tasked to do these things, but it does give you the hands on experience you'll need to move up up to more advanced tiers. Graveyard shift will probably be strictly surveillance and maintenance, and it will more than likely age you quicker. Avoid if you can.

kurosaki00

Im approaching my 4th month in the NOC
Im the lowest position it offers

At least in my noc you cannot apply for higher positions directly.
There are around 4 positions above the help desk lvl 1 position
regular, which is the same as hourly but its with full benefits and such
then there are the leads, this is like Sr position
then there is the guys that are experts in certain networks and go to meetings about these networks and such
and then the supervisors

Ive done both night and day shift and both have their good sides and bad sides
night - good = usually more chill, more "free time" (goo for training, reading, etc), the bad = when sh1t break loose there are just a handful of options to go because most people, places, providers are off hours. So you end up doing a lot of work

Day - good = constant learning, busy (this can be good or bad depending your opinion, I like to be kept busy so its good for me), the bad = sometimes it overflow with work and you wish you had 2 brains and 5 hands

At leas in my job I dont actually do any problem resolving but we do first level of troubleshooting and information gathering to create tickets.
Its very active when it comes to go to the router and different technologies and learn/enter commands (mostly show commands). But it does show you how network works. You also learn a lot about fiber, circuits etc etc

About what you want to be your 2nd step it depends on you
do you know enough about networks and how they work? how they connect?
(btw Ive taken the full ccna course/studies and I was wtf-ed when I saw that DB with circuits, dwdms, layers, segments etc)
if no, go for noc position

if you want to configure then I suggest a junior eng or admin position

paul78

My 2 cents - you may not want to rule out jobs which are for overnight or weekend shifts. It largely depends on the corporation's business. In the business that I'm in, overnight is our most critical batch processing period and if there are network transmissions that fail, those have to be fixed ASAP or heads will roll.

networker050184

Somnipotent wrote: »

I'd look for positions that indicate more troubleshooting rather than strictly reactive surveillance.

I agree with this. Talk to some of the people there when you interfview, get a good idea of what their duties are. You want to work in a place that has as much involvement in the trouble resolution process as possible even if it is escalating within your own department to more senior members. The NOCs where they simply watch lights and open/close tickets are the ones where you won't be growing very much professionally.

pert

Try to ask detailed questions about what goes on during the interview, but honestly its going to be a mystery until you show up day 1.

djfunz

Thanks for the tips guys. I actually had a NOC interview today and it sounded exactly what some have warned about. I was told almost immediately that this position does not involve any configuration of routers or switches and it's basically an alarm monitor that writes and updates tickets. That coupled with multiple rotating shifts really made me think twice.

pert

You have to start somewhere man. It doesnt sound ideal, but the ideal is very hard to find.

the_Grinch

I have to agree with pert. The thing you need to look for is whether or not there is room to grow. Do they have multiple levels of NOC personnel? Is there a metric for advancement? Also, you need to look at the size of the company and what it actually does. When I was on a NOC it was for an MSP so I monitored internet connections, servers, switches, routers, firewalls, and pcs. Given our size we were expected to do a fair amount before handing it over to a senior engineer because they might not be in the office to help.

For about six months I was on the night shift and I loved every minute of it. Again, this was more due to the size of my company. I was the sole night time NOC guy so anything that went down went through me. I handled helpdesk tickets if people called in, I monitored and troubleshot backups, all while doing all the normal monitoring duties. I'd patch servers, publish software in Citrix, deploy antiviruses, and handle any hand off issues from the dayshift. Also, I would work with smart hands at various data centers. Over the course of two nights I spent 12 hours with HP tech support troubleshooting one of their devices. The day shift couldn't get it done and the customer called ripping our Director of Ops a new one. He asked me to take a look and I got the job done (along with all my other duties).

Most people use NOC positions as a jumping point into a network or system engineering gig. Sure you might only be doing show commands, but what do you think a network engineer does when he starts troubleshooting? Baby steps and a good foundation will serve you very well as you move up.

djfunz

Great post the_Grinch and I agree with what you write. One of the things I want to try and avoid is accepting a position that doesn't use software that can be beneficial to learn outside of the company. Some companies utilize proprietary software or apps and it serves no purpose and doesn't present any advantages on a resume for future endeavors. My current company is very guilty of this and it's one of the reasons I transitioned to the API team. I want to learn technology that can be applied in the future. SAML responses, HTTP headers and OAuth 2.0 are all applicable to life beyond the company I'm with now.

A couple of examples for NOC positions would be using Nagios, Cacti or Zabbix or some packet sniffing with Wireshark are all things I'm interested in learning for Networking and learning in a production environment is key.

I understand that everyone needs to start somewhere and wholeheartedly agree. The shifts are not important to me. If a job sounds like a factory full of people watching alarms and creating tickets though, I don't think it will be an optimal place to develop professionally. Also keep in mind that I'm currently 31 and don't have quite the luxury time-wise that a 23 year old does.

So the hunt continues for a position that entails more troubleshooting and uses software that can be used outside of one company.

the_Grinch

I hear where you are coming from, but even proprietary software can still be helpful. The troubleshooting process is the troubleshooting process regardless of technology. The position I started in I took because I knew long term I could move up. I actually took a pay cut for it because they at least had four teams I could eventually move too and were small enough that I knew they'd look internally. Any good manager will see someone who is beyond the skill level required for a position and will help you to move up. When you think about it, especially in the ticket taker position in a NOC, they people are easily replaced. Anyone can answer a phone and generate a ticket. Some people are content with that and will stay there forever. Those who want to move up, will take it a bit further. Maybe put a lot more information in the ticket before it gets placed in a queue or perhaps offer a solution that they can't do due to lack of access. My point is, usually, good people get noticed and are not left to rot.

So if you can find a NOC where there is a few teams you can go to I'd say take the ticket taker position and work your butt off. Experience is experience and the hardest part is being able to explain the experience to future employers

Good luck!