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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

This episode has been sponsored by Meter.

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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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Support the show

Find everything AONE right here: https://linktr.ee/artofneteng