The Art of Network Engineering

AI can write code, troubleshoot systems, build applications, analyze telemetry, and increasingly take actions on our behalf.
So what happens to humans?
In this episode of The Art of Network Engineering, Andy sits down with Ryan Booth to explore what becomes more valuable as AI gets better at doing the work humans do.
The conversation starts with systems thinking. Everyone from technology leaders to engineers is talking about the need for systems thinkers, but what does that mean? Are network engineers better positioned for it than they realize?
Ryan explains why working with increasingly capable AI systems pushed him away from thinking like an individual engineer and toward thinking more like a manager, architect, and orchestrator. Instead of specifying every task, the job increasingly becomes defining outcomes, understanding dependencies, evaluating results, and deciding how much autonomy to give the system.
Andy and Ryan discuss human-in-the-loop automation, AI agents, building trust through progressively greater responsibility, the limits of today's systems, and why replacing people may be the wrong way to think about AI.
They also get into the fear surrounding AI, the enormous economic incentives driving its development, parallels with previous technology revolutions, and what engineers should do right now to prepare.
The takeaway isn't to outrun AI.
It's to learn how to use it, understand the systems around it, and become more valuable at the level where judgment, integration, leadership, and context matter.
Topics include:
• Systems thinking for network engineers
• AI agents and autonomous systems
• Human-in-the-loop automation
• How to build trust in AI systems
• AI-assisted network troubleshooting
• The changing role of engineers
• Learning AI through personal projects
• Automation, orchestration, and architecture
• AI risk, hype, and uncertainty
• What technical professionals should learn next
Ryan Booth: https://abstractryan.ai

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Everyone says network engineers need to automate.
Learn Python. Learn Ansible. Build a source of truth. Learn Git. Test your changes. Stop doing everything manually.
There’s just one problem:
When?
At AutoCon 5 in Munich, Andy Lapteff sits down with Dutch network automation consultants Bart Dorlandt and Bart Smeding for a conversation that starts with Python and eventually lands somewhere much more interesting: time.
Automation can turn three hours of work into three minutes. But getting there requires engineers to invest time they often don’t have, or don’t feel permitted to protect.
Andy knows that firsthand. At one point in his career, his manager gave him an entire day every week to learn automation. Instead, Andy kept using that day to catch up on operational work.
Why?
That question opens a much bigger conversation about engineering culture, burnout, professional identity, European and American attitudes toward work, change freezes, technical debt, and the endless tension between keeping today’s network running and building a better way to operate it tomorrow.
This isn’t another lecture telling network engineers to “learn Python.”
It’s a conversation about why that advice is so much easier to give than to follow, and what has to change if we want network automation to become common.
Bart Dorlandt:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bartdorlandt/
Bart Smeding:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bartsmeding/
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How does an English major with no technical background become one of the most recognizable voices in network engineering?
Drew Conry-Murray didn't start his career configuring routers, chasing certifications, or working in a NOC. He started as a copy editor who barely understood the networking articles crossing his desk.
Then someone threw him into a technical interview with a firewall vendor.
He had to figure it out.
That moment became part of a career spanning Network Computing, Interop, Packet Pushers, Network Break, Heavy Networking, and years of conversations with some of the smartest people in the networking industry.
In this episode of The Art of Network Engineering, Andy sits down with Drew to talk about the career behind the microphone: learning networking without formal technical training, developing the ability to ask better questions, surviving layoffs and career uncertainty, building relationships that create opportunities, and adapting as technology changes.
And, inevitably, they get into AI.
Drew explains why network engineers should become conversant with AI without assuming they need to become AI experts, why understanding software may matter more than writing every line yourself, and why human relationships still create an advantage even as technology becomes more capable.  
In this episode:
 How Drew went from English major to networking journalist 
 Learning networking by being thrown into the deep end 
 Why asking good questions is a technical skill 
 The uncomfortable reality that learning in tech never ends 
 Drew's path from Network Computing and Interop to Packet Pushers 
 What losing a job does to your identity 
 Why relationships create career opportunities 
 Whether network engineers really need to learn Python 
 How AI may reshape technical careers 
 Why being good at your job isn't always enough 
One of the strongest lessons from Drew's career is simple: you don't need to know everything before you start. You need enough curiosity to keep figuring out the next thing.
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John Capobianco is back, and this time the two of us are sitting in Munich building a subnetting game from scratch, live, with spec-driven development.

I've been vibe coding automations for the show for about six months. Some of it works. A lot of it falls over, and I've spent too many late nights chasing bugs in software I couldn't rely on. 
John wanted to show me a more structured way to build with an LLM: a constitution first, then a spec, then a clarify step where the model comes back with questions, then a plan, then the code.

Along the way we get into what a spec really is (closer to a network change plan than you'd think), why the tests get written and run without you asking, the token bill that caught John by surprise, and the CCNA study pain that nearly made both of us quit over subnetting. Eric Chou stops in partway through with his own take on why he doesn't get stuck anymore.

It's a real build, so it's messy in the good way.

John Capobianco: https://artofnetworkengineering.com/guests/john-capobianco
Eric Chou: https://artofnetworkengineering.com/guests/eric-chou
Spec Kit: https://github.com/github/spec-kit
NAF / AutoCon: https://networkautomation.forum/
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How much time did you invest in your career last year?
At AutoCon 5 in Munich, Andy sits down with Mike Bushong for a candid conversation about career growth, automation, AI, and staying valuable as network engineering continues to change.
Mike pushes back on one of the industry's most common narratives: learn automation and AI or get left behind.
Technology is changing, and learning new skills creates opportunity. But Mike argues that career development shouldn't be driven by fear. It should be about creating optionality; giving yourself more possible paths as your career and the industry evolve.
Then comes the foosball story.
Mike once worked with an engineer who desperately wanted to move into leadership but wasn't making progress. Over the course of a year, that engineer spent roughly 500 hours getting very good at foosball.
Mike asked him a much harder question:
How many hours did you spend improving your career?
That leads to the central idea of this episode: your expectations and your effort have to match.
Andy and Mike explore how network engineers can keep growing without chasing every trend, why deep technical knowledge may become more valuable as AI commoditizes access to information, and how gaining a little exposure across different areas creates "surface area" for future knowledge to accumulate.
You don't need to improve along every axis. You don't need to become an expert in everything. But you do need to keep growing.
Start small. Build exposure. Go deep where it matters. Let knowledge compound.
And every once in a while, ask yourself:
500 hours of foosball. How many hours on your career?
Full show notes, transcript and links: https://artofnetworkengineering.com/episodes/500-hours-of-foosball-20-hours-on-your-career-mike-bushong-on-staying-valuable
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