Career guidance please (Network engineer background)

Jan 20 2 Comments

Hello everyone!
I currently work as a Sr. Network Design Engineer for a regional telecom provider based out of Kansas City, MO. It's a small company of around 500 employees and I'm the only guy in the company who's on a visa, they had no clue what OPT, H1B was until I joined and they helped me out with all of that. My manager/director is an amazing guy, he's a smart engineer with great people skills. I can probably ask him for career guidance too if needed.

I like my job and the company culture here, however, I feel like I have been here for a while I'd be making more money if I switch to something different. And I'm not sure what that career switch should be and seeking advice from one of you who might have been in the same boat as me and made it big out there.

Given my skills below, if you guys can help me identify what kind of roles might be suitable for me and things should I be learning to make that role happen. I really enjoyed putting efforts into learning new topics even when my job didn't require it (wish I had same motivation during my college days lol) However, without having a clear career goal that makes more money, I feel like I'm learning more out of curiosity with very little or no pay off.

Skills:
Good understanding of networking protocols, design and troubleshooting.
Can do some python coding. Mostly using basic python constructs like loops, lists, dictionaries, sets, conditions etc. to automate certain boring tasks. Definitely not an expert and even the easiest leetcode questions baffled me once. Makes me think I can't be a great SWE like most of you guys here ;)
Basic linux background(standing up a new linux server in vm environment, navigate via shell, grep, install apps, run python scripts, tcpdump etc.)

#career #networkengineer #help
YOE: 7
TC: ~130K(including 15% yearly bonus)
Company gave me 50k shares. Currently each share is worth $1.57, makes it 78K in value. These are what they call Class B shares, I cannot sell these shares internally or externally and only time they make money is when major financiers of the company change. No one knows when that can happen. Pretty much useless unless I plan on being here for a long-haul.

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  • Op, go for network security engineer positions at large banks, you will be managing firewalls, F5 Big IPs, WAFs, etc
    Jan 20 0
  • Cisco
    oPQM86

    Go to company page Cisco

    oPQM86
    You can find a job in most IT organizations from actual Vendors to SPs and actual customer like banks, retail etc. possibilities are limitless. Also you can get into professional services / network consulting engineers etc. can also look at technical marketing engineering, sales engineering etc.
    Jan 20 0