And basically 10 years as a real world engineer. So it seemed like the right time to reflect on my journey in tech over the last decade.

Since starting to post online, I’ve had the variations of this question sent to me.

I got two last week, both from recent graduates trying to figure out where to start.

“How did you get started and what advice do you have for someone just starting out?”

Here’s what a lot of people would tell you:

Go get your CCNA. Do labs to prove yourself. Go apply for every possible job for a role in networking.

And some time ago, I would have agreed with this.

But it’s not the path I took.

My first role was in IT support — Windows, phone systems, audio visual, you name it, the desk I worked on supported it. And we did it in 12 hour shifts, 4 days on 4 days off. Not what I pictured my first “big career job” to look like.

What was really cool though was it was for the Rugby World Cup in 2015 back in the UK.

Once the tournament finished, our team got split up and I went on to work on a support desk that looked after a nationwide Cisco network. I didn’t have my CCNA.

So how did I end up being placed in a role that was supporting a Cisco based, nationwide MPLS network. Well, my networking degree probably had a small part to play, but what I think really did the trick, was something even more obvious.

I asked for it.

In the interview for the company, I explained that I wanted a role in networking. They had a role in support, after that they didn’t know if they would have a slot on that particular desk. But during that interview, I was open, honest and didn’t hide my career aspirations. I wanted to be a network engineer, what came before it was always a stepping stone.

I accepted the role on the support desk, knowing it was temporary. I was told networking would be a part of that role, and it was, so I knuckled down and made sure I put 110% into everything I did in those 4 months on the desk for the Rugby World Cup. Especially the tickets related to networking.

When it came time to disperse the team, I was a clear choice to move to a dedicated network team, and as it happened, a slot opened up. Fortuitous…maybe. But I like to think they would they have found a way to move me to one of the network specific roles anyway.

This can’t be it, can it?

About 7 months in, I started to wonder if this was it, that my career would be the same thing day in and day out. I got itchy feet, and eventually, with a few not so subtle nudges from the universe, I quit my job and packed a bag to go travel the world. Side note, remote work in Network engineering, not really a thing when I did this so, to me it was a massive risk.

After a few months exploring Australia, the cashflow was starting to suffer, so it was time to apply for a job. And that’s all I needed, just a job, not a career, not a promotion path, just something to build up the cash so my partner and I could go on our merry way across the world. Long story short, I got convinced to apply for “real jobs” and seek out sponsorship in this whole new country. I got a job, not in networking, barely even networking adjacent, but it was a job nonetheless and so my journey in the Australian IT industry began.

Oh, how I question my choices. I left that initial role after 6 months, let’s just say we weren’t the right fit, and once again I found myself on the market.

Why didn’t we just jump ship and continue travelling? Well… we’d both got a taste of life in Sydney, and what a career here could look like and we were hooked.

So I had to find a job. And I started hitting the job boards, applying for all sorts of different things.

I can’t even remember applying for the support role at a growing Sydney based Managed Service provider, but I got an email one day inviting me to the office in the center of Sydney. Now I’m from essentially a small town surrounded by fields in England, big tall office buildings are not what I’m used to. As I walked into the lobby of the office building, not really sure what to expect, I was in awe of the décor, the hustle and bustle of office workers having coffee in the lobby café. It felt like one of those movie moments, cheesy I know.

Once again I found myself being told that this wasn’t a networking role, but networking would be a part of it. Once again I wouldn’t have the network engineer title (what on earth did I go to University for?) and I’d be expected to support Windows, Active Directory, antivirus, and generally end user computing.

I accepted. It wasn’t ideal but they seemed nice and it was a cool building (even though they only had half of one of the 30 floors).

It turned out to be the best decision I could have made.

It took just over a year before I was “officially” promoted to network engineer, but in that time, I’d already been doing the work:

I was the go-to network guy on the service desk, all network related tickets came to me, I didn’t get given the Windows stuff, not really. This is actually a gap the service desk struggled to fill when I got promoted.

I’d run a migration project of a nationwide WAN of about 120 retail stores. I put my hand up to do this, to help the network team, and to show my own capability. The network manager was more than happy to let me have a go.

And I’d finally, started studying for my CCNA - yep, I didn’t have it. And I didn’t get it until after I’d been promoted and was off the service desk.

Throughout all of this, whilst there were twists and turns the goal was the same. I wanted a job that was interesting, challenged me and that I could call myself a network engineer. Communicating this clearly, asking to help, making sure I prioritised the work that showed my value in that business, and eventually it led to me leading that network team, in an award-winning Australian MSP during its biggest growth phase. It was hard work, but one thing is certain, I learnt a shitload in that role.

If you’re starting out in this industry, here’s my advice

When looking for a role, it’s easy to get stuck, looking at role titles and company logos. I spent weeks applying for roles in companies like Cisco and AWS only to get automatic rejection emails months later.

Here’s my advice to anyone trying to break into this industry.

Give smaller companies a go, the salary may not be as amazing, but they need you more, your contribution makes a much bigger impact, and not to mention it’s a much more relaxed interview process.

Don’t think it’s a step backwards to go for a helpdesk role, but communicate your career aspirations — a good company will help you get there.

Put your hand up for projects internally, if, like me, you work for an MSP, they always need help, and it proves your value.

Don’t just escalate. If you want to prove you can do the higher level jobs, do them. Of course, don’t let that go unnoticed, eventually you’ll need to have a conversation about recognition.

Certs will get you so far, but if you don’t have any, just work towards them whilst you’re in a real environment. Doing generalist work gives you a much wider picture to base your study off.

Understand how everything works and develop bigger picture thinking, this creates a systems thinking approach which is gold when you progress to senior roles.

When I look back at the last decade, I realise that everything came from knowing the destination, communicating my aspirations and putting my hand up to help, even if it wasn’t my role.

One of the messages I got this week asked me how to get started without a CCNA. The other message was from someone who already has one, wondering whether to go for the CCNP or to find a job first.

I got my CCNA after I was promoted. After I’d already been running a nationwide WAN migration. After I was already the go-to network person on the desk.

The certs matter. But I think this industry skews entry level too hard toward requiring them. For me, certs didn’t get me the job. And whilst they validated my internal need to prove I knew what I was doing, for the business it was mostly about hitting the vendor partnership criteria.

I had no qualifications in Windows or Systems Engineering. What got me in the door was being able to provide good customer service and communicate.

So if you’re waiting until you have the right qualification before you apply, you might be waiting longer than you need to. And if you’re wondering whether to chase the next cert or chase the job, I know which one I’d do first.

I hope this helps.

Danny

The street was buzzing with groups having after-work drinks. As I walked up the stairs to the entrance of the bar, I could already feel the nerves. Walking around the dimly lit bar, I found my name on a sign, and sat down to wait.

I ended up being there 30 minutes early, which is a bad idea by the way because you just sit there on your own looking like a bit too eager on a table booked for 20 people, wondering if anyone is going to show up.

I’ll be honest, I was only expecting four people (the ones I coerced) to actually show up. I’d had 18 register but I know how these things go, people register with good intentions but then can’t make it on the day or whatever.

So I didn’t have very high expectations. It turned 6pm, and I’m looking out the window, to see if I could spot any of the people that had registered. Gradually getting more nervous as time goes on. A few minutes later, an old colleague taps me on the shoulder. It was such a relief that the first person to arrive was someone I knew.

Then a second engineer walks in, and slowly more started to trickle in.

That feeling of relief. I’d been waiting for it a lot longer than 30 minutes.

The truth is, I’ve always been looking for a community here in Sydney. When you move to a new country, starting from zero, you don’t have old school friends or little pockets of people that you’ve gathered over the years. You don’t have people to vouch for you when you’re looking for a job or to tap you on the shoulder to come work for them. And if you’re not connected to someone in the industry already, chances are, you will get overlooked for others who are known.

I spent years in an engineering role at an MSP where the only other engineers I connected with were in my direct team, and maybe a few from my clients. I tried to find others, looking for slack groups, discord servers, meetups. Didn’t find anything.

Then I left that role, and joined a small startup company. I met more people in the Sydney IT industry in the first 6 months at this company than I did in the previous 6 years, and there was one simple reason for this, I’d stepped into a role that required me to build relationships with sales teams, presales engineers and customers, in order to be successful at the job.

This is when it all clicked. Engineers rarely get put in positions where they are required by their roles to form relationships with those outside of their teams. They rarely get the opportunity to go to industry events, because they’re all aimed at the people who sell things, and unless paid for by their organisations, they rarely get the opportunity (unless they personally invest in it) to go to industry conferences like Cisco Live.

The thing is, I truly believe that engineers want to get out there, that they want the opportunities that come with interacting with the industry — the mentorship, the job offers, the random skills you pick up along the way. There’s just not a space for them to do that.

That’s the idea behind The Route Table. I’m creating the thing I needed 10 years ago. To give engineers a space to meet industry peers, outside of the sales cycles and the product pitches. To foster meaningful connections that could lead to who knows what opportunities. To learn together, grow together and simply have fun in an industry that is full of burnout and negativity.

So I booked a table. And I waited to see if I was the only one who’d needed this.

I ended up with ELEVEN engineers in the room, some in IT support, others in Sales Engineering and Leadership, a real mix.

At some point during the evening I found myself to the side of the room, mid-conversation with one of the attendees. We were talking about community building, he’d grown communities in other areas and we’d got onto the subject of not becoming the hub, about building something that doesn’t depend on you to function.

Mid-sentence, I looked over at the room.

Everyone was mingling. Genuinely. Not the polite, awkward kind of networking. Just people, talking, laughing, sharing stories. People whose lives may never have crossed, had I not had the wild idea to stop looking for a community and to try and build one. Some of them even went to grab dinner together after.

Eleven engineers may not sound like a lot, but I left feeling excited, motivated, and with a clear vision of what this could become.

This is the start of something bigger. More events, unique experiences, and an accessible space for engineers in Australia.

If you’re reading this and it sounds like something you’ve been looking for, send me a DM. I want to meet you.

If you’re interested in coming along to the next event.You can check out the event calendar here

Every Saturday morning, I run with people who are building things.

Actual startups. Venture-backed, AI-powered, hacker-house-living builders. The kind of people you read about on TechCrunch.

I’ve been doing it for over a year, and I still haven’t quite shaken the feeling that I’m the odd one out.

Most of the group lives inside the startup ecosystem. VCs, deep tech angels, people building genuinely well-funded companies. Not just side projects with a landing page. Real founders with real backing.

And then there’s me. Pretty sure I’m the only one there who does “IT” and not “tech”.

Safe to say, I’m probably the least interesting person there.

For a while, I leaned into it as a bit of self-deprecating humour. “Yeah, I’m just the IT guy.” With a shrug and a slightly awkward laugh. But after enough coffees, enough conversations where someone asks what you do and you watch their eyes glaze the moment you say network infrastructure, you start to wonder if they’re right.

Then something changed.

I’m not sure exactly when it happened. Maybe it was the third or fourth conversation where someone was pitching their AI-powered tool, and I found myself thinking about what it actually takes to run it. The compute. The data centre. The network underneath that handles the traffic at the scale the big providers push.

All this innovation is amazing. But who’s building the foundations that make it possible?

It’s us. The infrastructure engineers. The unglamorous side of tech. The commodity layer no one thinks about…until it breaks.

The people in that Saturday coffee circle are building some really impressive things. But every idea they pitch is built on something they’ll never have to think about.

AI can optimise our systems. It can’t own them. It doesn’t carry the institutional memory of every outage, every workaround, every shortcut that became production infrastructure.

Cloud computing was supposed to make engineers like me irrelevant. It didn’t. It just moved the line. The plumbing got more complex, not less.

AI is going to make it even more.

My career has mostly been in mid-market businesses. Not massive, not tiny. In that space, I’ve never once been just “the firewall guy.” My title might have said Network Engineer, but I’ve worked every layer of the stack. Physical layer to application behaviour. Virtualisation, security, how the business actually operates day to day.

You become a generalist whether you like it or not. And that generalism is worth something. When you touch everything, you start to see how the cogs actually connect. You develop a kind of systems-thinking that’s hard to teach and easy to undervalue.

It’s also what leads to becoming an architect. Not because you got a certification or read the right book, but because you spent years subconsciously tracking how every change you made rippled into something else. You start walking into a room and quietly accounting for the user experience before anyone asks you to.

Infrastructure engineering doesn’t have a hype cycle. The conferences aren’t as buzzy, the LinkedIn posts don’t go viral, and most of the innovation happens in places the general public will never hear about.

And if you’ve been in this long enough, you’ll feel that. You know exactly how much depends on you. You know what breaks when you’re not there. You’ve probably held entire businesses together during incidents that nobody outside your team ever fully understood.

And you still walked into the all hands on Monday feeling like the least interesting person in the room.

That gap, between what you actually do and what gets noticed, is real. Backing yourself matters. But it only gets you so far if the work itself isn’t visible in a way the business understands. That part is fixable. Nobody ever taught us how.

Because the founders in my Saturday morning run group? Their ideas only reach a user because someone like you made sure there was a path for them to travel on.

That’s not a supporting role.

The question is whether you’re going to keep letting it go unnoticed.

I owe you an apology. My commitment to you was to publish on here once a week, and last week I missed it.

I could tell you that it was because life got busy, and I didn’t have time, but that would be lying to you and myself.

Yeah, life was busy last week, but the reality is I didn’t make time. My priorities were all over the place, and impostor syndrome hit me HARD!

What actually happened

In case you weren’t aware, I’m trying to build a business, and that takes a serious time commitment.

I had it all planned at the start of the week. Calendar blocked out, meetings locked in, tasks lined up. By Wednesday, I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing.

Suddenly, I was full of doubt.

• I don't look professional.

• Nobody would want to work with me.

• I can’t even choose a service I want to offer.

• I can’t even decide on a target market.

• I’m never going to make this work — I should just start looking for a job.

The advice out there is always the same: "Define your audience. Package your offer. Get clarity first."

And I thought I had all that figured out. But every new conversation nudged things in a new direction. At times, the whole idea felt like it was falling apart.

By Thursday night, I was drowning.

Next thing I know, it’s Friday, my day with my son, which means no work. Normally, that would stress me out more, but in this case, it gave me the space I needed.

I could think about the business, but I couldn’t act on anything. And weirdly, that was perfect.

By Friday night, I’d started to feel grounded again. I picked one thing to focus on: exploring what services I could offer without stretching myself too thin.

I was still overwhelmed, still very much uncertain, but back on track.

I still have a million ideas, and I have no idea if they will work. Maybe one day I’ll look back at this post and laugh — You absolute moron.

A Note to you (and to me)

I’ve warned you before that this Substack might become my founder journal — and well, here we are.

I like to think it’s because I’m an engineer. I like structure. I like things mapped out, designed, measured, and repeatable. But building something from scratch doesn’t work like that.

There’s no perfect plan. No golden image. No requirements doc.

So here’s the lesson I’d like to share for this week.

• It’s OK to freak out sometimes.

• It’s OK to stumble.

• What matters is that you take a step back and reposition yourself.

This may take a few days, but that’s OK.

If you feel yourself spiralling, take away your ability to act on it. Impostor syndrome thrives when you try to solve it all at once.

Sit in the chaos and think it through.

Try writing down everything in your head, just get it out on paper or in a notes app ( it’s amazing how much this helps).

Choose just one thing, and focus on that.

(For me, that was focusing on what services I could offer as a mini service)

If you’ve had a week like this, I’d really love to hear about it. What helped you get through it?

And if you're reading this and thinking,

• "Actually, I could use a second pair of eyes on something technical"

• "I wouldn’t mind chatting about how to automate some of our systems or processes"

• or even, “This guy would be a great mentor” 😁

I’m still in the messy middle of defining my services, so it’s a great time to have a low-pressure chat.

No pitch, because I don’t have one yet.

Just a chat.

If I can help, great. If not, meeting people is the best part.

Thanks again for reading my rambles. I’ll be back next week.

I've been wrestling with a question for a while now: can I truly be more than one thing in my personal brand?

It's been roughly a year since I dove headfirst into taking "personal branding" seriously. I've learned a tonne(or as the Aussies would say, heaps) in that time, much of it incredibly rewarding. Yet, there's one piece of advice from many branding "experts" that's been rattling around in my head: "Find the one thing you're good at and double down on that.”

While I might be misinterpreting their exact point, the sentiment has felt incredibly restrictive lately.

But why am I even building a personal brand? Well, my journey didn’t start off as that.

A desire to connect

My personal branding journey actually started from a very practical need. Having worked mostly for smaller companies, my professional network here in Australia was pretty limited to my immediate colleagues. I wanted to expand my reach, connect with more people in the industry, learn from them, and ultimately make friends in my city. Eventually I ended up on LinkedIn, and noticed others sharing things that were more than just job updates. So, I started focusing on sharing my insights as an IT professional, particularly as a network engineer.

Over time, something incredible happened. My posts weren't just connecting me locally; they were reaching people across the world. My thoughts and words were reaching others in ways I never imagined, sparking conversations and I was introduced to a global community I had no idea existed.

But now, that initial purpose, and the "brand" it created, feels like a constraint. My content largely revolves around the technical side of IT. Meanwhile, my life, like many of yours, is so much richer and more complex than just my job title.

More than an just an engineer.

Here's the honest truth: I've been feeling very restricted in my posting recently because so much of what I'm doing and thinking about in my life has nothing to do with being an engineer.

I'm dabbling in the world of entrepreneurship as a co-founder with my other-half, building something from the ground up, and having so much fun, trying to fix a problem we are very passionate about.

I'm navigating the joys and chaos of parenthood, a journey that shapes my perspective on everything, including work-life balance and efficiency.

I'm fascinated by efficiency and processes in all aspects of life, not just in network architectures. I'm the "weird guy" who genuinely enjoys optimising workflows for everyday tasks.

And frankly, I'm just a human being experiencing a very personal and vulnerable time of growth and transition.

The thought of sharing these other aspects feels... well, wrong. My established "brand" is "the tech guy." Sure, I could just start posting about the other stuff, but it feels like a pivot, exposing myself when all these things are still very much in a state of flux.

Can We Be More Than One Thing? (Spoiler: Yes.)

This is the question I keep coming back to. Can I be an engineer, a founder, a parent, and a process-obsessed efficiency enthusiast, all under the one umbrella?

My evolving answer is a resounding yes! And in fact, I believe that embracing these multiple dimensions isn't just possible; it's essential for a truly authentic personal brand.

I’m coming to believe that the advice to “find your niche, and double down” often focuses on getting quick gains, and is in pursuit of pitching your business. But to build a personal brand that lasts and builds genuine connection, it needs to reflect who we are outside of jobs, whether we’re selling our own creations or someone else's. Our professional lives are inextricably linked to our personal lives, our core values and our unique quirks. So why hide them?

So, I’ve been on a journey lately, exploring those other parts of my personality. Exploring how parenthood informs an approach to leadership, how going for a run with similar minded people has helped shape a direction and strategy for my multi-faceted personal brand.

My partner sent me a article from the other day and her “ Tree Approach” to personal branding is the exact validation that I needed for this thinking.

The longer I spend in these other areas of my life, the more I realise the benefits of all these interests. They are never distractions.

If you've also wrestled with your professional identity, I'd love to hear your story.

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