The Future of Network Engineering Is Bigger Than Networking
Networking fundamentals become more useful, not less, when engineers use them to understand cloud, security, observability, automation, and the systems around the network.
Read the postThomas Staub / Infrastructure, Architecture & Technology Strategy
Technical work rarely fits cleanly into a diagram.
I write about infrastructure, networking, technology strategy, operating models, and the decisions that connect engineering work to organizational direction.
Start Here
A few places to start.
Your Platform Shouldn't Have to Invent the Network
Automation works best when platforms make deliberate network architecture easier to consume instead of turning implementation choices into architectural defaults.
Read the postBuying Software Is Still an Engineering Decision
Choosing software is partly choosing which engineering, operating, and support work an organization is prepared to sustain after the decision.
Read the postWhat shows up here
The same problems keep showing up in different forms.
Most of my work starts somewhere around infrastructure, networking, architecture, AI-assisted workflows, or operations. What tends to matter most is the layer underneath: unclear ownership, imperfect information, production feedback, incentives, documentation, review, and the trade-offs people have to live with after the diagram is done.
A few threads
The themes underneath the posts.
Infrastructure and architecture
How intent turns into systems people can operate, change, troubleshoot, and explain under pressure.
Network engineering and observability
The loop between design, packet paths, telemetry, validation, and what production teaches after the diagram is done.
AI-assisted work
Where AI helps with context, drafting, review, and decision support, and where it needs boundaries to stay useful.
Career, decisions, and operating models
The parts of technical work that depend on judgment, communication, incentives, and reducing uncertainty with other people.
Experiments, tools, and useful rabbit holes
Small investigations worth capturing because they sharpen a workflow, a taste, or a way of thinking.