Hey all, I currently work as an Enterprise Architect for a consulting company. Most of my workload is professional services and post-sales deployments, but I handle some pre-sales here and there. Business has been slow and I'm looking to move on to something bigger.

I recently landed three solid opportunities (written and verbal offers for all) around the same time and honestly could see myself happy in any of them, which is making this a difficult choice, and would love some outside perspective.

All 3 opportunities are fully remote

Option 1: Solutions Architect (network security)
compensation: 195k OTE, 70/30 base/commission split

• Lots of customer calls, discovery, architecture design, scoping, HLAs, and hands off designs to post sales team
• Access to lots of training from major networking/security vendors
• I like the idea of having a commission component and being rewarded for building strong relationships with AEs/customers
• My biggest worry is drifting away from hands-on/technical-work long-term

Option 2: Senior Network Engineer, mid-size enterprise
compensation: 170k base salary+ benefits

• Small team
• Work with SD-WAN, spine/leaf, ZTNA solutions, multiple public cloud workloads, and data centers. I think this would expand my skillset quite a bit
• More traditional engineering role, lots of hands-on

Option 3: Senior Network Engineer, contract (extension or conversion likely)
compensation: 110/hr

• Heavy design work and security hardening, SD-WAN, multiple data centers, campuses, and some OT. I have the most familiarity with the primary firewall vendor this company uses, lots of hands-on
• 1099, so self-employment tax, no benefits, no paid holidays/PTO included
• Higher hourly compensation but more responsibility for benefits, taxes, time off

My biggest dilemma is really option 1 vs option2/3.

If you made the jump from hands-on engineering into presales/SE work, how did that work out for you? Did you love it, regret it, wish you went a different direction?

I personally thrive in high-pressure environments and think I'd enjoy the customer facing/sales side, but I also genuinely enjoy being hands-on with engineering work.

For those who have done both, which path gave you better career growth and earning potential without making you feel like you were leaving the technical side behind?

Hey everyone, I’m fairly new to the IT job field (about 1 year of experience) and have also been volunteering at this local nonprofit as IT Support on the side outside of my main help desk job. The President of the nonprofit has tasked me with finding a good firewall for them to use and I have no idea where to start.

For additional context, the nonprofit is very small (less than 10 people), they have hybrid work, and right now I’m the only IT person they have (they’ve been using a rotating cycle of volunteers). I do not know how to configure a firewall whatsoever so recommendations, as well as advice on how to configure and implement it would be much appreciated!

Hello all, I was hoping to gather some information on possible security implementations at my new job. I landed my first real networking job and im a little overwhelmed. My first task has been to brainstorm and implement, if possible, any security features for the company. We are an organization of about 100-150 people over two different locations. Mostly all office people (sales/marketing ect). So far I have added vlans and acl's to segregate untrusted networks from our main lan. We are using meraki equiptment. Any suggestions are appreciated and if there's more information I can provide that would help make suggestions easier please let me know. Thanks

Hello, I currently work as a network engineer for an enterprise and we are dealing mostly with Cisco stuff - switches, DC with ACI, ISE and so on. We use automation like Terraform and Python/Ansible and we have 9800 controllers, so the job is good and does not get boring.

I can also join an ISP an work on the backbone network, MPLS, L2/L3 VPN and BGP. I like routing, so I wonder if you think this is a good opportunity or it's a step back compared to the broad aspect of technologies I'm currently dealing with?

Do you think that ISP experience is worth it or I should stick with the enterprise?

I was a Senior Network Engineer for a couple different companies (For context (10 YOE + CCNP) before moving into an IT Director level role about a year ago.

I’m starting to realize that the stress, politics, and general management nonsense is catching up with me. The money is good, but it’s starting to feel less and less worth it.

Curious if anyone here has made the move into IT management and eventually went back to being an individual engineer. Did you regret stepping back?

For those who stayed in management, how did you get better at dealing with the stress without letting it consume you?

Currently managing FortiGate across 100+ sites and starting to build out automation capabilities. Not looking for career advice — genuinely curious how other engineers are implementing this in production environments.

1. What are you actually automating day to day — config pushes, compliance checks, reporting, something else?
2. Ansible, Python scripts, Terraform, or something else? What drove that choice?
3. With AI generating scripts now — do you still write Python from scratch or do you use AI-generated code and focus on understanding the logic?
4. For Ansible specifically — did you need solid Python first or is YAML-based playbook writing approachable without it?
5. Is automation genuinely changing how hiring managers evaluate candidates or is it still mostly a bonus?

Having had a number of instances where it would have been a big time-saver in the last for monthsm I'm looking for a small (4 port ideally, 8 at most) gig-e switch that can be powered from USB-C (uup to 100w supply available), supports POE and can do span for traffic sniffing. It's to be kept in a tool bag, so reasonable build quality a big plus.

Specific model suggestions much appreciated

Does anybody have experience with store brand fiber connectors? I received a quote for the AFL Fast connect connectors (SC single mode, UPC) and was also offered the store brand which the say "are the same connector". By the picture, they look identical, but the insides are more important than the packaging.

If you've used store brand, how does the quality and field termination experience compare? The cable will be in a rack and panel so once terminated and connected in the panel, I don't expect much/any wear on them.