The Art of Network Engineering

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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 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 from Packet Pushers kicks things off with highlights from their global salary survey — 418 respondents across 33 countries, with some genuinely surprising numbers around certifications, tools, and geographic salary gaps. Pat follows with a straightforward breakdown of how to build your case, time your ask, and walk out of a raise conversation with something — even if the answer is no.
David takes it from there with a hard truth most engineers don't want to hear: being good at your job is the floor, not the ceiling. Visibility, advocacy, and knowing who has influence over your next move matters more than you think. Danny brings the career path conversation — why management isn't the only way up, why passion matters more than a title, and why finding your people changes everything.
Andy closes with a personal story about unemployment, cognitive bias, and what it actually took to unlearn a decade of being anti-automation. Fair warning: it gets real.
This is the kind of conversation that usually stays in the room. We're glad we got to record it.
Topics covered: salary benchmarks, asking for a raise, promotion strategy, career pathing, network automation, cognitive bias, personal brand, soft skills
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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 understanding the problems those technologies were trying to solve.
You’ll hear:
 Why Ethernet was never designed to be used the way we use it today 
 How Spanning Tree came to be, and why it wasn’t meant to be permanent 
 The blurred lines between Layer 2 and Layer 3 
 The real reason BGP exists (and its limitations) 
 Why engineers often jump into solutions before understanding the problem 
 What people get wrong about quantum computing and AI 
This is one of those conversations that doesn’t just teach you what networking is, it changes how you think about it.
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The Art of Network Engineering explores the human side of IT—real stories, real lessons, and practical insights from people shaping the industry.
This episode has been sponsored by Meter.
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Find everything AONE right here: https://linktr.ee/artofneteng

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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-world question every engineer asks: who actually needs Wi-Fi 7? Is it a game changer for the average home user, or does it really shine in high-density and high-performance environments like classrooms, auditoriums, healthcare, and immersive AR/VR use cases?
Along the way, they translate complex wireless concepts into practical networking language that route/switch engineers can relate to, making this a great episode for anyone who wants to better understand modern wireless without needing a CWNA-level deep dive.
In this episode:
A quick history of Wi-Fi and the 802.11 standard
Why wireless feels so different from wired networking
How contention, collisions, and airtime shape wireless performance
What OFDMA and resource units actually do
What makes Wi-Fi 7 different from Wi-Fi 6/6E
How MLO changes the wireless conversation
Why deterministic wireless matters
Where Wi-Fi 7 fits in the enterprise
When it makes sense to upgrade — and when it doesn’t
The episode also closes with a great reminder that networking is about more than protocols and throughput. Greg shares why the Art of Network Engineering community has mattered to him from the beginning, and why finding your people in this industry makes all the difference.
This episode has been sponsored by Meter.
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“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 helped. Then we pivot into what’s changed: modern models are strong enough to be useful, but only if you stop treating them like a search bar and start connecting them to real tooling and real data.
John explains the core building blocks—LLMs, RAG, agentic workflows, and especially Model Context Protocol (MCP)—and why MCP may be the protocol that finally makes AI feel operationally real.
Finally, we land on a concrete “Hello World” for neteng: connect an AI client to a source of truth like NetBox or Nautobot (in a sandbox), start with read-only workflows (logs, config deltas, compliance), and build from there—safely.
If you’ve been curious but overwhelmed, this is your on-ramp.
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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 IT
The massive data demands behind pediatric cancer research
Designing networks where downtime isn’t just inconvenient, it’s unacceptable
Supporting clinicians, researchers, and life-saving applications simultaneously
Lessons enterprise engineers can learn from healthcare environments
From high-performance data movement to reliability strategies that operate without margin for error, this conversation reframes what networking looks like when human outcomes are on the line.
Because in environments like St. Jude…
The network isn’t just infrastructure; it’s part of the care team.
This episode has been sponsored by Meter.
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Find everything AONE right here: https://linktr.ee/artofneteng