 San Antonio, Texas has emerged as one of the hottest hiring locations for Cisco Certified Network Engineers seeking to fast-track their careers into hyperspace. |
Aggressive hiring by Cisco powered network and managed hosting giant Rackspace has certainly contributed to San Antonio's growing reputation as a Cisco engineer career advancement paradise.
As part of the Brad Reese on Cisco effort to bring the latest Cisco hiring trends to Network World Cisco Subnet readers, we are publishing the following 4 questions below that were asked and then answered by Bryan Powell - director of recruiting for Rackspace.
1. Why did Rackspace choose to make San Antonio, Texas their headquarters?
Rackspace was founded by three local college students, Dirk Elmendorf, Pat Condon and Richard Yoo, as well as two San Antonio entrepreneurs, Graham Weston and Morris Miller.
San Antonio was their home, and they wanted it to be the home of Rackspace—even when advised otherwise by investors who thought all tech companies needed to be based in either Silicon Valley or Austin.
San Antonio has been a great decision, too—real estate is less expensive, power prices are less expensive (which is important as a data center operator), and we employ more than 1,300 San Antonio Rackers today!
2. What are the five things that make San Antonio, Texas a more attractive place to live than Austin, Texas?
San Antonio has proven to be a valuable location for Rackspace headquarters.
Five things that make it attractive to live:
| 1. | Cheaper living/real estate. |
| 2. | The San Antonio Spurs! Go Spurs Go! |
| 3. | Strong military community with Lackland Air Force Base, Randolph Air Force Base, Brooks City Base and Fort Sam Houston. |
| 4. | San Antonio has a strong Latin-American culture with museums, restaurants, festivals and other arts and entertainment celebrating the Latino culture. |
| 5. | Multiple higher-education institutions including Trinity University, University of the Incarnate Word, University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), Our Lady of the Lake University, and St. Mary’s University. |
3. Why is a position at Rackspace based in San Antonio, Texas a wise career move? For what reasons?
Rackspace employees not only learn about the importance of great customer service, but we also invest heavily in Rackers’ career development.
Rackspace spends more than $3,000 a year per employee on training, and all quarterly technical programs are tied to career tracks for Rackers.
Rackers also have the chance to work with a slue of experts including Red Hat Certified Engineers (Rackspace officially employs more RHCEs than any other hosting company in the world), Microsoft Certified Professionals (including MCSA, MCSE, MCDBA, MCT, MCDST) and a multitude of Cisco-certified professionals.
Rackspace Data Center
As a service provider with more than 15,000 customers, our technicians get a ton of good experience working on technical issues that most in-house IT professionals may only see every once in a while.
We have people that come to Rackspace with very seasoned skills, but once they are exposed to all of the different environments here at Rackspace, it takes their knowledge to a new level.
4. What advantages would I have as a Cisco professional working for Rackspace in San Antonio, Texas vs. working for another employer based somewhere else?
Cisco professionals also have the opportunity at Rackspace to work with a multitude of technical experts including Cisco-certified and other network-certified professionals:
CCNA, CCNP, CCIE, CCDA, CCDP, CCIP, CCSP, RHCE, LP11, LP12, A+, Server+, RHCT, MCSE, MCSA, MCP, Network+ and Linux+.
As we mentioned earlier, they also are exposed to all sorts of IT environments and issues when working with a base of 15,000+ customers.
It takes their expertise to a new level.
Cisco professionals also have access to our top-notch internal training department, Rackspace University, and every employee is eligible from day one for more than $3,000 worth of training each year.
Training includes professional development classes such as IT services management essentials, technical courses and certification training—all of which are tied to career tracks for Rackers.
Last but not least, they also get to have fun!
We take care of our Rackers by providing a fun work environment where they work in teams and are empowered to make business-decisions that affect their customers.
Rackers celebrate successful quarters through celebrations like Racker Battle of the Bands, Racktoberfest, Rackspace Circus and more.
Each department is also rewarded for meeting quarterly goals with a quarterly team off-site of their choosing – some team off-sites have included lake outings, philanthropic activities (e.g. volunteering at the San Antonio Food Bank), outings to the Chairman’s river house and more.
 Obviously, Cisco Certified Network Engineers seeking to fast-track their careers into hyperspace are going to need plenty of experience and additional Cisco certification to achieve their goals. |
With San Antonio, Texas becoming the hot spot for talented Cisco engineers to advance their careers, Brad Reese on Cisco presented the following question below to Ed Gonzales - director of network security at Rackspace.
1. How will working for Rackspace in San Antonio, Texas increase my technical expertise and development of my learning, passing more advanced Cisco certifications?
One of our primary concerns, within the Network Security arena at Rackspace, is to leverage theory with practical, real world application.
Not only is this fostered within the culture, it is a business need as the breadth of technology increases when managing 15,000+ hosting customers.
The leveling requirements, for career development, hinge upon CISCO certifications so that theory continues to be the foundational aspect of a Network Security Administrator’s base knowledge – a tiered approach to education mixed with active mentoring and hands-on experience.
Currently, Administrators to Architects range in certification from CCNA to CCIE with various flavors of certifications in between.
We find that encouraging technical ability through education and hands-on experience greatly affects the quality of the customer experience by ensuring confidence and overall mastery of content.
With sales up 63% in their most recent quarter, Rackspace headquartered in San Antonio Texas, is one Cisco powered network accelerating at warp speed!
Brad Reese cofounded BradReese.Com Cisco Refurbished, which enables affordable Cisco networks globally by assuring customer satisfaction with guaranteed one year warranties on both Cisco Repair as well as Refurbished Cisco.
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