after last 13 years spent at Cisco Systems Poland, working in the “field” I decided it’s prime time for something new. something, that can challenge me and give back that sense of new adventure.
having opportunity to spend all that time with great people, learning a lot and experiencing even more was great fun. i went through full country chain - from “simple” Systems Engineer, to Architecture Lead, Systems Engineer Manager, then Regional Sales Manager (driving 2/3rds of country business operations) and finally Country Systems Engineer Manager and CTO. those thirteen years bring together the best moments (like ability to see your interns grow into SEs and then develop in different roles, or meeting Customers and Partners on countless conferences and events, including Cisco Forum and Cisco Connect) and some of the most challenging and stressful in my life as well. living with weight of your decisions and learning on your own errors, taking ownership of having those hard 1:1 discussions… and ultimately also having to let some people go was really a steep learning curve (and opportunity) i won’t ever forget. some day i may share some of my observations - it’s still too early I believe.
my new role is with the Cisco Security Business Group, driving cooperation for those “field” teams i was part of, with the product development and engineering teams. the scope is “security” but right now i’m really focused on Cisco Firepowers. i just turned “3 months old” in the new role, and i’m really enjoying the mix of my “old” knowledge and experience, with new, exciting challenges waiting for me in my “Product Manager” role. the thing is - after managing teams for the last 8 years i’m back in “single contributor” role (have you worked in corporation for too long, sir? ;) ). this is another topic i’ll probably share some observations on in the later blog posts.
why “changing lanes”? with my formal change, other changes are coming as well. i’ll have more time (hopefully) to get back to writing, delivering bootcamps (like CCDE, CCIE SP or SDN ones) and trainings. also, I may be able to get back to attend (and maybe even present on?) conferences, like PLNOG and others.
right now… i’m changing lanes ;)