While Cisco DevNet announced new certification programs for network engineers and software developers at last year’s Cisco Live event in San Diego, at today’s Cisco Live EU event, the company announced that the entire DevNet certification program will be updated in February 2020, including adding a DevNet Associate Fundamentals Training to help interested individuals train for the initial Cisco DevNet Associate Certification, as well as a DevNet Study Group platform for people who need community support during the various certifications.

“We don’t want people to just find the tools and the training that they need at DevNet. We want them to find each other,” said Ryan Rose (pictured), technical program manager at Cisco DevNet. “We want them to not just build together, but learn together.”

Rose spoke with Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Stu Miniman (@stu), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Cisco Live event in Barcelona. They discussed the DevNet certifications and what the future looks like for network engineers with development, automation, and edge computing. (* Disclosure below.)

Multiple paths to success

There are now so many ways to be relevant in today’s world as a network engineer, according to Rose. The updates to the DevNet certifications will continue to help bring flexibility through offering ways that elements of automation can be baked into a network engineers journey so that they can still have their original skill sets while building upon new skills as they go.

“It opens up a brand new horizon of tasks and even efficiencies … new job roles that are even starting to emerge,” Rose said. ” So rather than just having this opportunity where you’re looking at supporting a network or … acting as a network administrator, now with automation … we actually can expand the opportunities of the rules themselves and really open up things like maybe… those security automation elements, maybe you’re interested in adding the collaboration automation elements.”

It’s apparent in this world of digital transformation and edge computing that networking engineers are blurring the lines and becoming more development-oriented, according to Rose. The gaps between DevOps and IT are coming together between the software and hardware sides.

“These people that are here in the DevNet … they’re the pioneers, they’re the ones that are out there on that edge that are doing that exploration and building these new things, these new worlds that we’re going to start experiencing in automation,” Rose concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Cisco Live event. (* Disclosure: Cisco DevNet sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Cisco DevNet nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE