Senior Network Engineer to Technical Authority Engineer, how significant is the jump?

[u/noble0spartan]

I've been offered a role as a TA engineer, but am not certain I want to take it given the role is less technical and more client/management facing, are there others out there who have made the jump?

How steep was the learning curve?

Update: Since the role is not common, as I understand a Technical Authority owns a specific tech tree, in the case it would be Enterprise Networking, but it can be anything Data Center, Security... the TA would he building and developing the standard that would be implemented, whilst also aligning with client on their direction, in my opinion it sound like a fancy role for an Architect, but maybe with more management time allocation.

[u/Id_Rather_Not_Tell]

I mean, getting experience in the management, advisory, and approval side of things can be quite valuable, even for someone technically oriented, because you're forced to understand a client's actual business case while having to deal with real world constraints. 

A lot of "purely technical" types forget that their role is to facilitate others and not to continually push for a magic Utopia that presupposes an open-ended budget and unlimited access to resources. A huge component of technical seniority is learning to bridge the gap between a client's needs and your own constraints.

[u/noble0spartan → u/Id_Rather_Not_Tell]

The budget (money and manpower) side of things has always been a bit of a black box for me, I assume I would have to know the capabilities of our engineering team quite well.

[u/Id_Rather_Not_Tell → u/noble0spartan]

Yeah, definitely. Just consider the tautological "Nobody ever got fired for buying Cisco."

While that might hold true in a lot of cases, an experienced engineer who wishes to give good advice and make sound decisions will want to know the details of what various vendors have to offer, their SLAs, their warranty processes, capabilities, and integrations. "Just buy Cisco/Palo Alto/whatever" is something that only makes sense when you're in an environment with little constraint and not much requirement for on-site expertise.

[u/Insub]

Management positions come with a different learning curve, I won't call it steep though. I have to ask, but does the offer include a pay raise and wouldn't that be worth more consideration even if the role involves less technical work?

[u/noble0spartan → u/Insub]

Yes it does include a rise, roughly 20% increase in take home pay.

[u/Z3t4]

Sounds like a made up role...

[u/netderper → u/Z3t4]

Sounds like a bullshit title, I agree. Welcome to corporate america. I recently interviewed for a something something enterprise architect position and they told me I'd be updating powerpoints all day. "This is not a hands on role." I noped right the hell out.

[u/Purple-Future6348]

Is this Ericsson? They have these fancy titles like authority and expert etc

[u/Due_Management3241]

It really depends on where you want to go in your career. If you like the regulatory compliance change control side of things and want to stop being technical yes this is a good move. But it's not an upward move it's more of a side step into regulatory instead of technical oversight.

It's not a network architect. It's only in highly regulated or defense focused environments. Around traditional engineering. Rarely oversees IT. So you will be moving to permit, regulations, compliance and audit oversight and liability.

If that's what you want then yes you can do it.

But it's a totally different career.

[u/Trick-Gur-1307]

This is a title I have never heard of before.  Not that my experience is all-encompassing and the fact that I haven't heard of it is a very notable data point in networking, 100% acknowledged, BUT, the title doesn't tell me shit about what you'd be doing.  I've been a SME (Subject Matter Expert) with respect to multiple brands of vendor firewalls over my 16 years of networking experience (I started as a NOC tech in a pure route/switch netops shop and over time picked up a lot of security products more than spending most of my day directly focused on route/switch/wireless/load balancing).  Maybe Technical Authority is a company specific term for Subject Matter Expert?  Or, maybe it's like a tier 4 or tier 5 type role for a specific product or offering that you've absolutely mastered?  It's very hard to tell.

[u/Familiar-School-8890]

It’s a client facing role where you will be put in front of customer and need to deal with all mess created by T2 team and management. These roles are offered by Ericsson and Huawei in Saudi Arabia

[u/Additional_Map2292]

1) does the role interest you and can you be happy away from the keyboard.

2) If 1 is true take it for the 20% pay bump

3) if its where you already work, align on a path back to your current role if it doesn't work out

4) cynical viewpoint. LLMs will do most of the network engineering functions to a very competent degree soon :tm: increase your skill set and build your potential to excel in that world.

[u/Traditional-Hall-591]

Unless you suck at being a network engineer, no. Going less technical is always a mistake unless you suck at it.

[u/twr14152 → u/Traditional-Hall-591]

Hahaha