Best type of Network Engineer job to be able to study for the CCIE on the clock

The title says it all. I'm curious what type of positions are better suited to be able to put in serious hours on company time? Which ones aren't? I would think picking up a job working for Cisco would be a fast track to CCIE - maybe a year or less if you bring solid routing and switching skills with you?

What say you?

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Turgon

aldous wrote: »

i work in Cisco AS and although i personally get quite a bit (full 360 course online course) that is because i came in through a grad program. if your a normal hire you don't get 360 handed to you. i also had to buy my rack from ebay etc. The main thing within Cisco is there are a lot of people who have been there and done it so understand what your going through for example my manager who is not in a technical role is a CCIE from when he was technical. i'd imagine its quite rare to get this outside of Cisco and it means they will cut you some slack to do some study (but not all of it, i get up 5-6am to get in study hours before work and am usually in bed by 10 pm )

Let's be clear about this. Im not bashing the Cisco crowd here. They have some very good people. There are lots of people working for Cisco who have little or no dollar paid time to study for certs..but, It's a big company and there are *plenty* of people who do and it's been going on for years. At a proof of concept day at Cisco last year we were hosted by a charming young lady who was going for her second attempt, and she didn't know how to clear out an arp cache. Those of us in the field do. In fact she learned a few things from all of us that day, and none of us were CCIE's.

Many CCIE's work for Cisco and a lot who do had and continue to have advantages in terms of peers and quality time on workstime to prepare. The rest of us are slogging away all hours trying to make Cisco stuff work, with no training, and nobody really helpful on the end of the line from Cisco to help us with our bespoke problems in our production networks.

So my advice is. If you really want the CCIE, try and get hired by Cisco and get yourself into the right role there where you are fully supported. You will pass and you can get a second or a third if you really want. Thousands have.

instant000

Based on my experience, there are several ways to get a job where you get indulged to study for high-level Cisco certs (especially CCIE):

(DISCLAIMER: I have no first-hand accounts of Number 6.)

(1) Cisco ANCE (Associate Network Consulting Engineer) -- This is a program where they basically bring on recent college graduates, and they spend their entire day, night, and weekend being inundated with Cisco, with the goal of getting them capable of passing CCNA, ROUTE, SWITCH (not TSHOOT -- never thought to ask why, but by all accounts from those who have taken it, it is indeed fluff and just a re-hash of what you already learned in ROUTE and SWITCH), and the CCIE R&S Written within their first 90 days, and ideally, being able to pass the lab sometime thereafter. After this, they go to a six-month rotation to some division of Cisco. They bring in outside vendors to train on-site, and they basically spend all day learning and studying for that 90 day period. Can you imagine a 90-day intensive bootcamp? That's basically what it is. It's also a bit more than technical, it also teaches you the soft skills you need to be prepared to represent the company professionally. The entire program is like 9 months or so long. If you're a recent college graduate (check the program for their definition of recent) then you can shoot for this program. As far as support for certification, you have access to the best possible lab environments and can ask questions of multiple CCIEs who would be working with you daily. You'd also have the support of being with a class of other engineers who were studying the very same stuff as you.

(2) Cisco PNCE (Professional Network Consulting Engineer) -- This is basically the same as the above program, except for being targeted at professionals who've been in the field a few years, and have experience. For people with a few years of CLI under their belt, they should be shooting for this program. A friend of mine who went through this program (currently, a CCIE) says that there was less of a dormitory experience for the more experienced people, and it was moreso of a "support network".

(3) Off-Shift work in a NOC (Network Operations Center) -- If you can swing an off-shift, and also work with people who won't bug you for unnecessary stuff (co-workers can be a bit chatty during later shifts), you can get a lot of studying done during the off hours. Besides maintenance windows and generally being available in case something goes down, you can get TONS of studying time here.

(4) Cisco Resellers/Partners - If they're trying to reach their quota, then they will encourage you to get certs to meet/maintain their partner status ... kind of a "Duh" here. Of course, you still have to do work, so this probably falls under the shift work one above. An excellent resource they get is the Partner Education Connection, where you get free access to Cisco versions of courseware. My wife got picked up by a VAR, and I'm encouraging her to milk it for all it's worth to me ... *ahem* I mean, to her

(5) Yourself -- Use your own time. You're your own boss. Take command of your spare time, and study. As I'm married, I can honestly say that I have to be a bit smarter about my time allocation now than I used to be, as maintaining a healthy relationship takes time, too. For those of us who are single, then use the time to your advantage now. If you are not single, then try to get the support of your spouse, and sell it as a long-term win-win situation for the both of you. Fortunately, my wife is in IT, so she understands the "perpetually studying" thing, and my parents were big advocates for lifetime education all along, whether it involves getting pieces of paper or not, they did always advocate learning, and maintain that curiosity to this day.

(6) Supportive Employer -- Maybe, just maybe, you're working for an employer (excluding those categorized above) who realizes you need a little time to "re-tool" yourself, and maintain technical proficiency, which is good both for the employer, and for you. As I disclaimed above, I have no first-hand accounts of this scenario, but a poster above says that it exists.

aldous

instant you do have to pass TSHOOT on the aNCE program just not within the 90 days. i was aNCE in 2010 and those 90 days were the most intense of my life! ( and i already had CCNA and BSCI going in!) theres a lot more training then just technical as well which reduces the time you have for technical stuff. All the training was done by global knowledge so there was no secret Cisco sauce anyone could do the same thing if they had the bankroll

if your a recent grad (within two years) i would thoroughly recommend it as an in to networking.

Turgon i think you misunderstand me i didn't think you were bashing anyone. your story doesn't surprise me its very easy to get cert focused rather than actually doing the stuff you should be doing to be a better network engineer. you forget simple things whilst focusing on the complex. i've had to go back over some of the basics recently (ARP etc) as i was unsure yet spend so much time working out complex labs through INE/ 360. Also as you spend your time on the customers network you can forget things sometimes as you are often restricted to enable mode.

instant000

aldous wrote: »

instant you do have to pass TSHOOT on the aNCE program just not within the 90 days. i was aNCE in 2010 and those 90 days were the most intense of my life! ( and i already had CCNA and BSCI going in!) theres a lot more training then just technical as well which reduces the time you have for technical stuff. All the training was done by global knowledge so there was no secret Cisco sauce anyone could do the same thing if they had the bankroll if your a recent grad (within two years) i would thoroughly recommend it as an in to networking.

Turgon i think you misunderstand me i didn't think you were bashing anyone. your story doesn't surprise me its very easy to get cert focused rather than actually doing the stuff you should be doing to be a better network engineer. you forget simple things whilst focusing on the complex. i've had to go back over some of the basics recently (ARP etc) as i was unsure yet spend so much time working out complex labs through INE/ 360. Also as you spend your time on the customers network you can forget things sometimes as you are often restricted to enable mode.

aldous:

Thanks for the clarification on TSHOOT. I'm no longer a recent graduate, the only reason I know what I know about ANCE, is that I applied for it, and wasn't accepted

.... got to fly up there and everything, but they only took half the people they interviewed, most of which had gone to Rochester, apparently. (If I had known, I'd have gone to RIT also! ... it's like the Rochester Mafia up there in that program.)

I think I'd try again next year, for PNCE if I have the 'NP by then (or ANCE again, if I get my Master's before the enrollment period begins). Or, if I get hired on where I'm working (contract-to-hire right now) it'll be a moot point.

Sepiraph

If you work in a NOC, you should have time at night. But any type of real "engineering" job, you'd probably be too busy to have time at work to study.