The Certification Ladder

You know what a subnet mask is. You can explain the OSI model at a dinner party to people who did not ask. The cert expires in three years.

You understand subnetting without a calculator. You've configured VLANs. You've broken VLANs. You've fixed VLANs at 2am. You're starting to understand what the job actually is.

You know enough to be confident. You know enough to be wrong. You've read BGP RFCs. You've still blamed DNS first. You are now employable anywhere and respected by most.

The lab exam cost you a relationship, a sleep schedule, and a significant amount of money. You passed on attempt 3. You don't discuss attempts 1 and 2. People call you at 3am now. This was not in the job description.

You chose Juniper. You understand commit confirmed. You have opinions about routing instances. These opinions are correct. Nobody asked. You are right anyway.

You understand what a Transit Gateway costs per hour. You tried to explain this to management. They nodded. They approved the architecture. You watch the bill.

You don't have a cert. You have scars. You are the only one who knows what that config does. You are also the only one on-call. You are irreplaceable. This is not a compliment.