Looking for a Tier 1 ISP Mentor for career advice.

Fri Nov 25 03:26:09 UTC 2011

On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 8:40 PM, Tyler Haske <tyler.haske at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm looking for a mentor who can help me focus my career so eventually I
> wind up working at one of the Tier I ISPs as a senior tech. I want to
> handle the big pipes that hold everyone's data.

Replying on-list, as I think a route for this desired target can be
neatly summarized (oh, networking term!) in the following list:

1) be
2) do
3) have

First, start by being the sort of person that might work at these
places. Don't know how or who they "are?" -- meet a few, interview
them, ask about their life, attent NANOG (student rate: $100/meeting)
and have a drink or three with them, etc. Next, do the things they
do--this may take a while. Finally, you can 'have' whatever they are
having once you've traversed 1) and 2), assuming there's a spot on the
far-side of this bet.

You can thank Janet Plato (a great ex-Ann Arbor/ANS person) for this
method. I hope she doesn't mind my paraphrasing here.

Best,

-Tk