Possible Plung Into Consulting - Thoughts?

I've recently been engaged for a potential Pre and Post Engineering role with a company representing Cisco (VAR).

They are developing a team to engage clients continent-wide (Canada, USA, possibly extended to Western Europe) for Cisco ACI/APIC services specifically, as well as UCS, MDS, Nexus 7/5/2k trifecta and protocol specific technologies to integrate. The focus is on growing and rapidly expanding this SDN Application Aware networking approach.

...

I've never pulled over on a road before to read a Job Description. I didn't expect to see the words SDN, ACI, APIC, Nexus and Data Center in the same 2 lines for another 5-10 years. Hell, I still see customers using CatOS, WINS and Hubs. (Shudders, Babies Crying in the distance)

There is a 40-50% travel requirement, which is really stressing me out. Also, these is obviously a sales element to it -which would be another element of stress, these things are metric driven and someone keeps track. But, this is a potential Decade-Long security for a career in a field that is going to demand billions of dollars of investment from enterprises, small to large.

Is it worth the sacrifice in personal time and life? Would you take it if you could? Has anyone made this kind of a move and regretted it?

First World Problems.

~

Darkerz

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Comments

MSP-IT

Do it.

You're working at arguably the #1 company for networking and are looking at a job offering for the next big thing in networking (SDN). I would love to be in your position. The potential in that role is unspoken.

Do you want to stay relevant and push the next big innovation?

jleydon82

darkerz wrote: »

I've recently been engaged for a potential Pre and Post Engineering role with a company representing Cisco (VAR).

They are developing a team to engage clients continent-wide (Canada, USA, possibly extended to Western Europe) for Cisco ACI/APIC services specifically, as well as UCS, MDS, Nexus 7/5/2k trifecta and protocol specific technologies to integrate. The focus is on growing and rapidly expanding this SDN Application Aware networking approach.

...

I've never pulled over on a road before to read a Job Description. I didn't expect to see the words SDN, ACI, APIC, Nexus and Data Center in the same 2 lines for another 5-10 years. Hell, I still see customers using CatOS, WINS and Hubs. (Shudders, Babies Crying in the distance)

There is a 40-50% travel requirement, which is really stressing me out. Also, these is obviously a sales element to it -which would be another element of stress, these things are metric driven and someone keeps track. But, this is a potential Decade-Long security for a career in a field that is going to demand billions of dollars of investment from enterprises, small to large.

Is it worth the sacrifice in personal time and life? Would you take it if you could? Has anyone made this kind of a move and regretted it?

First World Problems.

~

Darkerz

I've been working for an MSP which is essentially consulting type of business where you do go onsite to customers. It is a similar type of environment where you are going to be traveling onsite to be a subject matter expert for the most part, and you should focus on the benefits this could have on your career. The most common thing I see is going to customers where you might say hey they would be great for this new product that is coming out that would have a drastic improvement on their environment.

My concern at first was oh man I don't want to travel that much. But as I started doing it and the months went by I lost that stress and it was more of a - I can't wait to go to this customer since I can personally improve their environment. Additionally, I found I was learning a lot more then I had in the past since I was constantly learning new technologies and new environments, finding new conflicting issues since all companies operate differently, and yes the sales aspect came in there where I actually enjoyed it. For me personally, I was not allowed to "sell" but I had that opportunity to say: I completed this project and found additional opportunities for our company to resolve other issues or make other improvements.

At the end of the day, you do have that increased travel but you end up helping your own company tremendously, helping the companies you consult at, and it is a huge perk for yourself in terms of experience.

On the other hand, that type of environment isn't for everyone but try not to stress as much about these things that you might end up enjoying.

darkerosxx

Take the job. I'll probably be seeing you soon.

N2IT

You only live once. Go with your gut.

paul78

I would love to have the opportunity to get back into consulting. I did it for a while back in the early 00's and it was one of the most challenging but fun periods of my career. I know it's not for everyone. I couldn't really hack it because of the constant pressure of sales (but back then I was an independent consultant). But today, if I had the opportunity to work for the Big 4 or similar, I would jump at the chance.

The travel can be tough because of time away from the family but I work pretty long hours anyways.

What always appealed to me as a consultant was the fact that there was always a start and a stop. There was also variety when dealing with different problems at clients. And best of all, it was about getting stuff done.

N2IT

Paul - I never was at that level of consulting, I had worked directly with some of our principal consultants and just as you described it was for them. Sales, sales and sales but a huge element of technical.

Just to add on to what Paul said, which I really can't add more except a scenario I witnessed.

While I was working for a very large MSP we had a engagement manager decide this effort wasn't for him. So this principal consultant came down for a few weeks to stabilize the situation and man was he the real deal.

His written communicate was insanely fast and perfect with his grammar. This ability to engage the client and influence them was something I have never seen before. I was so impressed to this day I talk about the guy he is truly amazing.

His education was only the finest both bachelors and masters and he had 20+ years of experience at a executive level. But he could go into the weeds and bang it out if he had too. I remember him working 10 hours for a fortune 500 client a huge multi million dollar account and then swinging to our work effort to assist and building a C# front end in a week. He killed it over the weekend and it was ready to deploy that following week. He just asked we build the database and gave us the specs.

Wow - he is like a modern day greek IT hero lol

philz1982

N2IT wrote: »

Paul - I never was at that level of consulting, I had worked directly with some of our principal consultants and just as you described it was for them. Sales, sales and sales but a huge element of technical.

Just to add on to what Paul said, which I really can't add more except a scenario I witnessed.

While I was working for a very large MSP we had a engagement manager decide this effort wasn't for him. So this principal consultant came down for a few weeks to stabilize the situation and man was he the real deal.

His written communicate was insanely fast and perfect with his grammar. This ability to engage the client and influence them was something I have never seen before. I was so impressed to this day I talk about the guy he is truly amazing.

His education was only the finest both bachelors and masters and he had 20+ years of experience at a executive level. But he could go into the weeds and bang it out if he had too. I remember him working 10 hours for a fortune 500 client a huge multi million dollar account and then swinging to our work effort to assist and building a C# front end in a week. He killed it over the weekend and it was ready to deploy that following week. He just asked we build the database and gave us the specs.

Wow - he is like a modern day greek IT hero lol

And his name was? I like to LinkedIn stalk people with potential so I can mimic their success....

N2IT

Philz I really can't do that I would feel strange.

On second thought let me think about it. I'll PM you lol.

philz1982

What's strange about cyber stalking.... Oh, wait...

philz1982

I did 50% travel when I was a development engineer for our Cloud offering. I FREAKING LOVED IT!!! I worked from home 50% of the time, and was on the road in front of clients 50% of the time. I got to learn a bit of everything. For someone with ADD, it was awesome, the engagements were short enough to keep me interested.

50% travel is 2 weeks a month. It's really not bad. I have 3 little kids, married 8 years. I found it very easy to achieve from a Work Life balance. Working from home eliminated my office commute cutting out travel. When I was home, I would start work at 5am and finish by 3pm. When I was on the road I would work 6am to 10pm, but I wanted to, I would slam out work on the road and typically have 3-4 days work when I was home. So it was like a 3-4 day vacation every 2 weeks. AWESOME!

The amount I learned doing a consulting gig, was amazing, probably progressed my development and career by 5 years... Also, gave me tremendous visibility to upper management which has resulted in an "accelerated career path". I am 32 whereas my peers are in their late 40's....