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 / vStaub
vStaub is a place for reflections on infrastructure, architecture, AI, and the parts of technical work that rarely fit cleanly into a diagram.
Some posts will be technical. Some will be about decisions, trade-offs, career, operating models, and the human systems around engineering. Mostly, this is a place to document what I'm learning.
Latest Posts
Recent thinking from the blog.
Self-Service Networking Should Expose Intent, Not Configuration
Good network automation asks consumers for the outcome they need, then derives the implementation details the network already knows how to provide.
Read the postYou Should Define Your Segmentation Policy First
Durable segmentation starts by defining required communication and its consequences before choosing how to enforce it.
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. But the interesting part is usually 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.