E41 - Aaron Glenn at Predicted Paths BV

On today’s episode of The Route to Network podcast, our Director of Telecoms, James Dean was joined by Aaron Glenn, the Managing Director at Predicted Paths BV. The pair delve into where his journey began in the Networking industry, his transition into a different role and where his passions lie.

His journey into Networking all started down to being tired of his Systems Administrator role. He discovered that Network Engineers had more fun and an easier time plugging cables in with the flashing routers, and it all went from there.

The excitement for the world of technology all started with the prospect of being able to instruct this machine and have it do what you want, “that feeling is almost addictive”.

The transition he made from the Systems Administrator role into Network Engineering was an easy move. It allowed him to do things he was more interested in, and he enjoyed the infrastructure and data centre side of it. With his System Administrator role, he was able to transfer skills to the Networking side. He had a familiarity with the command line, Linux, and an understanding of how software is built which has been a massive help in his current position now.

Something he wishes he knew before starting in this industry as he was very optimistic thinking the right technical solution was always going to be the one that won out. He would go back and tell himself to read one or two books on behavioural economics, negotiation, or human psychology because he spent a lot of his career advocating for the superior technical solution, not winning out and being very frustrated.

More on Predicted Paths BV…

He started the company at the start of the pandemic and was about to build out an SD-WAN platform for a CSP. He went ahead with those plans, built up the business and migrated away from consulting and advisory which he’d traditionally done over the last 10 years or so.

Some of the things he is working on now is getting people to think a little differently. He feels that people are getting a little too comfortable with things like Automation and he is obligating and talking about solutions on a deeper level and wants to guide people to think differently about their network.

Something he is enthusiastic about is the potential to offload operations within Network computing. Engineers he has worked closely with have not considered that devices could do more than just push packets the way they want. Aaron thinks we will see in the next few years, the Network not just forwarding packets but computing things for software developers, applications, and workloads.

Looking back at himself as a 16 yr. old, he remembers that he wanted a lot for himself career-wise. So, if he could go back and offer a piece of advice to his 16 yr. old self, it would be that ‘management isn’t for you and to work in a lab!’ He compares himself to Mr Wolf in Pulp Fiction, the man you call to sort things out.

Aaron gives his best 3 skills that he suggests people need to up-skill and improve on… Make sure you tune in now to find out what he says!