From womens perspective on Network Engineers

Ever since I can remember, I spent all my childhood next to boys, also in primary school, I mostly liked to be in boys' groups and not girls, and I think it’s natural that I choose an education which is not typical for women – A Telecommunications Technician.

All my working years I have spent next to technical profession representatives – starting from database admins to field engineers and others, but mostly, I would like to highlight network engineers.

Router-switch GURU – this is the first expression which one I can attribute to a network engineer, his or her own language, which for others sounds like a crumb alphabet and of a totally different mindset. This time I want to dig deeper and come to a conclusion as to what a network engineer is, what she or he “eats” or how we like to say- “What’s in Teddy's tummy “and find out which of the many stereotypes are real when we talk about Network Engineers?

I do believe that the first impression about a person who's called a Network Engineer is that this person is quite boring, a bit dorky, all interests revolve around network technologies, maybe even have an obsession with them, and, actually, from one side, it is commendable. From the physical side, poorly developed, with glasses and very likely looking for reasons to avoid sports and other activities, instead, they prefer to read a different tech articles and play a computer games. These are the first (and most common) stereotypes.

From childhood, our parents have “programmed” us for our daily habits. Some of us are not eating breakfast, because as children we saw that our parents are not doing this, or for example, my father really likes to eat bread with jam and drink milk in the evenings, I used to do this as well. In some kind of way, parents drive us to what we will be in the future. If you go to choir at primary school, most likely, it will be a hobby when you grow up, and you will enjoy singing. You know what? Habits are very easy to break or adjust.

If we check deeper into the stereotype of a Network Engineer, we could agree that this stereotype is stuck with typical engineer habits. Of course, I cannot say that all habits are gone, but I do believe that they have changed. If we analyze the expression about the physical side and the possibility to avoid activities- You do not have to be a Network Engineer to be lazy and demotivated from doing them.

Mostly this stereotype comes from part truth- sure, that Network Engineer's highlight of his or her day leads next to a computer reading manuals, programming and coding switches, routers, and other network equipment, sometimes even eating beside a working station, because they are too busy.

Compare a profession such as Accountants- if these professionals also spend almost all of their time next to a computer dealing with high volumes of data, then, why does no one don’t say that accountants are lazy and are avoiding activities? There are no differences in relation to the profession you are in, but there is a difference in attitude towards yourself, and if you are stuck with habits to make you prove that this stereotype is real. If, however, you are prepared to change and break them, you will be able to laugh about it. Of course, there are many exceptions, but there is no right or wrong way, there is only the way to better yourself.

Glasses are not a sign that you are a dork, this is a sign that you do care about your health. Some people should wear glasses due to health problems; some people wear them preventatively to avoid these health problems, but some, especially now days wear them without any medical reason, only because it is stylish. Why is the assumption formed that we can attribute to wearing glasses to engineers? Well, yes, if you spend a large part of the day next to a PC and maybe at home next to a TV, or other blue screens, your eyes will get tired, and that is why many people proactively wear glasses to avoid deeper health problems in the future. Again, the same conclusion, there is no difference in your profession, but there are differences in your attitude toward yourself.

Ok, we went through briefly, in my opinion, the most common physical stereotypes about Network Engineers. But we left a very important issue to discuss – The Network Engineer's inner person.

To start, we should go back to our primary school time. Do you remember? You were Einstein in math, or the newest Claude Monet in arts, or maybe you were a walking Encyclopedia knowing all facts about history and geography? Well, all subjects were divided into two parts: humanities and exact sciences. Not all people are equally strong in both of these subjects; most of us are stronger in only one of these. Stronger people in the humanities are mostly extroverted persons, but those who are into exact sciences are mostly introverted persons. In which part would you expect Network Engineers to be stronger and mostly developed? I think it is easy to answer that these are the exact sciences and especially math. If you are already stronger in exact sciences in primary school, I would like to say that there is a huge possibility that in the future you will choose your profession where you don’t have to work with people, but rather where you have to work alone.

If I go to the future, there I see “Downstream bond- Network Engineers” are stronger in exact sciences, which means that these people are more introverted than extroverted persons, which is absolutely true. When I remember one of the places where I worked, there was an excellent example of a Network Engineer, who really loved working at night, and not because of maintenance works, because then he was able to work alone in server areas without any interruptions. When there were situations when the network was down or any huge problems with it, nobody wanted to call him to ask what was happening, because he always had his own crumb alphabet, which nobody understood, and after this, the calls we had more misunderstandings regarding the problem than understanding of it. There are lots of examples I could relate, but no matter how many of these stories I will tell, all these have one core characteristic, that network engineers, actually on the whole, are introverts, with a different mindset, expression, as well as the type and sequence of actions. There is nothing wrong with it, or something to hide, because all people have their own oddities.

But how about personality traits? I think to be a great Network Engineer, students must have some important traits such as patience and stress resistance, because sometimes there are situations when the engineer should start a job over and over again from the beginning, because something may not be working, and there may be a lot of mouths that are asking when it will be ready. Also, I would like to say that the person should be creative and full of ideas for backups, because sometimes there is not only one way to fix issues and come to the best solution. Of course, this person should be knowledgeable and with a desire to learn, as the IT industry is growing and evolving fast, engineers should adapt and learn with it.

A subject, which is very deep and wide, I will look at briefly: Women in IT. There is no doubt that this is a very controversial theme, but if women have the same knowledge and interests in this industry, there is no doubt that they will be good, if not better than some good men, who may be acting knowledgeable and interested in the field.

I do believe, if there were an experiment where women and men did the same job without knowing gender, they both would do this job just as well. With this, I wanted to say, do not rate people by gender, I rate them by the jobs they do or do not do.

Finally, I would like to say that the kind of people we will become depends on what we were in our childhood. Habits and physical traits are very easy to adjust and break, as mentioned before, you only need to want and try to do so. However, most importantly, what I wanted to say with all these thoughts is that is there is no difference in what kind of profession you are in, there will always be stereotypes regarding it. Only you know if they are real or not. For others, I would like to say that do not judge people by the cover, I judge them by their achievements.