The Dojo Network: A Comedy of Errors
Ancient Tech: They’re still rocking usernames and passwords like it’s 90's. The "data centre" is basically just a couple of racks in someone else’s building that they’ve slapped a fancy label on.
Maintenance is a Joke: Devices haven't seen a patch in years. When they finally try an upgrade, the whole thing chokes because the logs are so bloated.
There’s zero hardening—it’s wide open and waiting for a disaster.
eg: NTP Nonsense: The Time Protocol is so out of sync that the logs are useless. Telling an engineer "manually check the time" against logs is peak incompetence; it makes troubleshooting a guessing game.
They commission a new switch pair and start hooting like they just launched a satellite. This should be escalated straight to senior leadership as evidence of how low the bar actually is.
Leadership Concerns: In my experience, the network team lacked effective technical leadership. Decision-making often felt driven by micromanagement rather than engineering expertise, with routine operational tasks receiving disproportionate attention while strategic priorities were overlooked. AI tools appeared to be relied upon for meeting preparation and technical discussions, but effective leadership ultimately requires sound engineering judgment, clear technical direction, and trust in experienced team members. The result was an environment where execution slowed, accountability became blurred, and routine changes were treated as major events instead of standard operational work.
Toxic Culture: It sounds like a "boys club" where talent is blocked to protect the lead’s ego. Hiring based on discrimination instead of skill is why they’re stuck hiring contractors to fix basic firewall issues.
Vendor Vibes: They pick vendors based on "who the big players use" rather than what actually works for the stack. There’s no strategy, just vibes and irrelevant questions that go nowhere.