The Art of Network Engineering

Епизоде

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  500 Hours of Foosball, 20 Hours on Your Career | Mike Bushong on Staying Valuable 12.08.2026 36мин

  How much time did you invest in your career last year? At AutoCon 5 in Munich, Andy sits down with Mike Bushong for a candid conversation about career growth, automation, AI, and staying valuable as network engineering continues to change. Mike pushes back on one of the industry's most common narratives: learn automation and AI or get left behind. Technology is changing, and learning new skills creates opportunity. But Mike argues that career development shouldn't be driven by fear. It should...
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  Cursor for Network Engineers? Meet Transit AI (Sponsored) 05.08.2026 1ч 12мин

  AI is rapidly changing software development, but why are network engineers still hesitant to trust it? In this sponsored episode, Andy welcomes back CBT Nuggets trainer and Data Knox creator Knox Hutchinson to discuss the intersection of AI, networking, and modern operations. Before building Transit AI, Knox spent years as a software developer delivering enterprise applications for financial institutions before transitioning into networking, a perspective that gives him a unique view of why A...
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  whoami: Network Engineering's Identity Crisis 29.07.2026 42мин

  In Linux, the whoami command returns the identity of the current user. But what happens when engineers ask that same question about themselves? Who am I if I am no longer the person who knows every command? Who am I if automation can perform the work I spent years mastering? Who am I if AI can write code I never learned how to write? At AutoCon 5 in Munich, Andy Lapteff sat down with Network Automation Forum founders Chris Grundemann and Scott Robohn to examine one of the biggest barriers to ...
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  The Biggest Myth About Open Source 15.07.2026 59мин

  Does making your code public mean giving away your best ideas? It's a question more developers are asking as AI makes software creation more accessible than ever. After spending decades believing software development wasn't for him, Andy Lapteff has spent the last several months building real applications with AI-assisted coding tools like Claude Code. That journey led to a bigger question: Should you make your GitHub repositories public? Joining Andy is William Collins for a thoughtful discu...
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  Why Most Network Designs Are Flawed 01.07.2026 46мин

  Andy Lapteff sits down with network architect James Bensley at AutoCon 5 in Munich to explore the realities of service provider networking, architecture, automation, and standards development. James shares his path from support engineer to architect, explains how network designs evolve, and discusses how architects balance business requirements, operational simplicity, and long-term scalability. The episode also explores product development, the IETF, RFCs, and why understanding...
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  From Network Engineer to Product Marketing: A Career Path for Communicators 17.06.2026 47мин

  What happens when a network engineer realizes their biggest strength isn’t just technology, it’s communication? In this episode of The Art of Network Engineering, Andy Lapteff sits down with Patrick McCabe to discuss the transition from network engineering into product marketing and other vendor-side technical roles. Pat shares stories from: carrier-scale networking,tier 3 operational support,IPTV deployments at AT&T,systems engineering,sales,and eventually product marketing leadership.To...
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  Networking for AI: Why Every Network Engineer Should Pay Attention in 2026 03.06.2026 45мин

  AI infrastructure is reshaping networking faster than most engineers realize. In this episode, Andy Lapteff sits down with Scott Robohn to discuss why traditional network engineers should start paying attention to AI networking, GPU infrastructure, and the massive changes happening inside modern data centers. They explore: Why AI workloads are changing networking requirementsGPU networking and lossless EthernetEthernet vs InfiniBandThe rise of NeoCloud providersCo-Packaged Optics (CPO)Ultra E...
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  Why Most Engineers Struggle to Build Visibility (And How to Change That) 20.05.2026 52мин

  Andy Lapteff sits down in person with Tom Hollingsworth ahead of Networking Field Day 40 for a wide-ranging conversation about Tech Field Day, what makes a great delegate, how great technical conversations happen, and why curiosity remains one of the most important traits in networking. Tom shares the “secret sauce” behind Field Day: strong content, the right audience, and logistics that make the experience valuable for both vendors and delegates. Andy and Tom also discuss AI in networking, t...
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  Tech Careers Are Built on Relationships, Not Resumes 06.05.2026 29мин

  In this episode, we break down why traditional job applications are failing and how networking communities like USNUA are becoming the fastest path to career growth in IT. You’ll learn: Why applying online isn’t working How real opportunities come from real conversations Why community matters more than certifications You don’t get hired through applications. You get hired through people. If you want to grow your career, this is the shift you need to make. Full...
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  You Don’t Need Python Anymore: Hello World For AI 22.04.2026 53мин

  For years, network engineers were told the same thing: “Learn Python… or fall behind.” But what if that’s no longer true? In this episode, we walk through a real Hello World for AI in networking: connecting an AI agent to NetBox using Model Context Protocol (MCP) and querying network data in natural language. No scripts. No Python expertise. Just results. This is a live, unfiltered build, from cloning a repo to debugging JSON to finally asking: “How many sites do I have in New York?” …and get...
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  Grow Your Career in 2026 08.04.2026 1ч 14мин

  What does a network engineer actually make in 2025–2026? How do you ask for a raise without making it weird? And what's the single biggest thing holding your career back? We recorded this one live. This episode comes straight from the US Networking User Association PA Network User Group 2026 Spring Career Day — a standing-room-only event organized by USNUA in the Philadelphia area. Five talks. Five perspectives. All of it relevant to where you are right now in your career. Drew Conroy Murray ...
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  Radia Perlman: You’re Solving the Wrong Problem 25.03.2026 1ч

  What if the biggest problem in networking is that we’re solving the wrong one? In this episode of The Art of Network Engineering, Andy and Lexie sit down with Radia Perlman, one of the most influential figures in networking history and the inventor of Spanning Tree Protocol. This conversation goes far beyond protocols and configurations. Radia shares how networking evolved, through constraints, tradeoffs, and human decisions, and why so much of what we learn today is incomplete without unders...
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  Wi-Fi 7 Explained: What Network Engineers Need to Know 11.03.2026 47мин

  In this episode, Andy sits down with Gregory Grimes to unpack the world of Wi-Fi 7 and what it means for network engineers. If wireless has ever felt like magic compared to the predictability of route/switch, this conversation is for you. Andy and Greg walk through the evolution of wireless networking, from the early days of 802.11 to the latest innovations in Wi-Fi 7, including wider channels, better spectrum use, resource units, and multi-link operation (MLO). They also explore the real-wor...
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  The ABCs of AI 25.02.2026 54мин

  “AI Won’t Replace You, But Someone Using AI Might” AI is everywhere; stickers, marketing, hype. Network engineers are understandably skeptical. In this episode, Andy Lapteff is joined by longtime friend of the show John Capobianco (now Head of AI & DevRel at Itencho) and Mike Bushong for a practical, optimistic “ABCs of AI” discussion designed for working network engineers. We start with a blunt reality: automation adoption is still low, and the old “automate or die” narrative hasn’t help...
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  Life-Saving Networks 11.02.2026 1ч 3мин

  What does “mission-critical networking” really mean? At St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, it’s not about uptime SLAs or dashboard metrics; it’s about supporting the research and care that helps save children’s lives. In this episode, we sit down with Remington Loose and Josh Morris to explore the architecture, scale, and responsibility behind one of the most meaningful networks in the world. We dig into: How research networking differs from traditional enterprise ITThe massive data deman...
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  Learn to Code With AI 28.01.2026 39мин

  Erika Dietrick (aka “Erika the Dev”) is back on the show, and she’s days away from a major life change (welcome, Baby Dev). In this follow-up conversation, we dig into the thing that keeps coming up in network engineering careers: programming is no longer a “nice-to-have.” Erika breaks down her free YouTube course designed specifically for network engineers: Level 1 is “programmatic thinking” (the mindset + foundations), Level 2 is where AI becomes your learning accelerator, and Level 3 is a...
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  Why Projects Fail 14.01.2026 48мин

  We've all worked on those technical projects that felt doomed from the start. In this episode, we're joined by Eyvonne Sharp and Mike Bushong to dig into what actually derails technical projects, and why the root cause is usually people, not packets. We unpack: - Why 80–90% of project failures aren’t technical - What “executive sponsorship” is supposed to mean (and why most teams never use it) - The real reason timelines feel arbitrary: information asymmetry - What “healthy escalation...
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  Why Engineers Struggle to Communicate (And How to Fix It Fast) 31.12.2025 58мин

  Recorded on-site in Austin, Texas, at AutoCon 4 (Network Automation Forum), Andy sits down with Colin Doyle to talk about the human side of technical communication and why it matters more than ever in technical careers. They dig into practical speaking advice for engineers: how to slow down without losing authority, why “dead air” feels scarier than it is, how to stop relying on scripts, and how to structure a talk so your audience can repeat your message when you leave the room. Colin shares...
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  What is IS-IS? 17.12.2025 56мин

  Most network engineers know BGP, OSPF, and maybe EIGRP, but far fewer have hands-on experience with ISIS. In this episode of The Art of Network Engineering, Andy Lapteff sits down with Russ White and Mike Bushong for a deep, opinionated, and refreshingly honest discussion about routing protocol design in modern data centers. We explore why BGP has become the default hammer for every networking nail, what we lose when we blend underlay and overlay into a single protocol, and why some of the l...
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  Building the Right Network 03.12.2025 52мин

  In this special on-location episode of The Art of Network Engineering, Andy Lapteff sits down in person with Kevin Myers for a conversation that pulls no punches. Kevin brings decades of service provider and whitebox experience to the table as the two dive deep into one of networking’s most complex decisions: how to choose the right vendor to build your network. From Cisco to whitebox, from enterprise carpeted IT to hyperscale data centers, this episode is all about designing networks that ...