The Complete Data Center Technician Roadmap (2026)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: so let's cover the network technician or data center technician roadmap for 2026 so as you guys know ai data centers are absolutely booming right now and they need network techs to staff them and they are in dire needs right now and network tech is their unique position in tech is one of the most ai proof position in tech and it's funny because you're building ai data centers and we need network techs to service those data centers so if you guys know ai data centers are coming out all over the united states and we need more network techs and what network tech is the people who actually touch the physical hardware the physical devices the routers the switches the servers the the firewalls all those devices in a data center need to be managed by people on at those facilities and it's very unique position like i said it's a hardware position but you get to actually touch physical devices and feel that is the most ai proof field within all of network in my opinion so it's a field that i recommend you guys can get into in terms of salary there is a wide band and this is where people get caught up they get caught up because they take these lower paying data center technician jobs when they can get bigger bags in in this field so first of all i will look for fang positions fang positions do do tend to pay more but we'll come back to that let's start with the roadmap so where should you start if you have zero experience what should you do if you're trying to become a network tech so if you're trying to become a network tech the first thing that i recommend you do is first to see exactly where you are what you're doing what you're learning what you're at right now do you have a college degree do not like i said you have to decide so i'm assuming you have zero okay so if you have absolutely zero the first thing i want you guys to do is you're going to need to get the right mindset the mindset is the most important thing you have to have this mindset that i'm gonna move quickly i'm gonna move quickly if you're not gonna if you're not willing to move quickly you're gonna be left in the dust and that's the last thing i want you guys to have to deal with is being left in the dust so number one thing is you've you've committed to moving quickly you're already good to go next thing you want to do is acquiring the right skills and i say the right skills not not acquiring skills with the right skills so network technician roles are like i said dealing with with layer one layer two stuff you're not going to be dealing with a lot of routing so i wouldn't really learn that much routing but i would learn a little bit of it just to understand it because during interviews and i've seen students sometimes do get asked that so one thing i want you to do is just learn the basic fundamentals right the first thing you want to learn is what is the osi model what exactly are the layers you know and i made a whole playlist on on the osi model so go and listen to that uh but the osi model is a really good thing that once you guys listen to layer one all the way to layer seven exactly how it works you know what's decapitation what's incapitation all those things matter so i want you guys to actually listen to that and figure out how that works once you've done that then i want to learn the basics like what a vlan is right what is arp what is what is an ip address what is a router what's a switch what are these devices that you're going to be working on because you're going to have to have a really good fundamental understanding of those particular devices and what they do and how they work because at the end of the day these devices are devices that you're going to be configuring or maybe not configuring but just troubleshooting and fixing so it's really good really good to have a just a basic level understanding of how they work and this is what i always recommend to beginners all the time is to get that basic level understanding you're going to have to actually just sit down and just learn the theory and the theory does take time to learn once you learn the theory the next thing i would move on to is actually go ahead and actually acquiring some sort of labbing software and the labbing software that i recommend is going to be packet tracer packet tracer is one of the best labbing softwares and i would build very very simple labs right and here's the thing when you're working at a data center you have to remember we're working at a data center you are in a loud environment you are in an environment where there's a lot of devices equipment um and one thing i would do is i would get a labbing software but also what i recommend is i would watch a ton of data center videos i would watch to see how these data centers look like what people do in these data centers and there's tons of free videos that you can actually do to see what a data looks like right you know i've been to multiple data centers and they're really fun to to go to but the thing i also want you guys to know about is you just want to understand how the environment looks like it has to be like because once you understand what you're going to be the environment you're going to be working at you're going to have a good understanding of what exactly you're going to be doing on the job so once you have that environment you're going to see there's a lot of cooling equipment there's a lot of um all those things that just wires moving around everywhere it's a really cool environment but i want you guys to learn exactly how it looks like what you're going to be doing all those things matter once you've done that then once you have good understanding then i'll go into package history and kind of play around with it and i'll build out some sort of data center topologies and like i said you're going to be doing this with a lot of switches and a lot of layer three switches so you're using a lot of um you know lag commands or lag lag um so like lacp so which is like a port channel so because a lot of data centers use that and a lot of redundancy so i want you to build out a lot of redundant labs on packet tracer and this can be very simply done just search up on google how to build that um redundant labs and just learn how to build them out how to troubleshoot them how they work um and then kind of have that mindset of like okay if i was a network technician or data center technician what would i be doing in this particular position if i were to like move stuff around do things here and once you've done that uh the next step i would actually focus on is getting the you know learning how to actually speak right and best way to do this is i would actually go ahead and actually start speaking out loud of the things that you're doing on those projects talk about what you're doing what what exactly how you're troubleshooting how you're fixing things those things matter a lot because when you're interviewing and we'll come back when we get to interview we'll come back we'll come to that when you're interviewing you have to be really really good at speaking and actually technical speaking skills um and then another thing i would focus on is talking to network technicians right very very important i would go on linkedin and actually speak to these individuals these individuals have the context right um and one thing that like for example i didn't know that network technicians to be able to um one thing that you're gonna be doing on the job when and i'll give you i'll give you a context that you guys can can learn about so when it comes to the network technician realm one thing that you're gonna be doing is something called light testing see like light testing is the thing about there's something called the fiber optical uh you know equipment where there's like lasers right and the light level which is like the they call the dbm has to be a certain wavelength um there's like some sort of calculation but it has to be at these like certain numbers right for us it was like between negative like set negative four dbm and like two dbm positive two dbm it has to be in that sort of realm but as a network engineer or network technician you're going to have to fix that and adjust it and things that you can do is you can clean the fiber you can uh roll the fiber you can swap the optic you can uh you can um do a thing where you add padding to the to the you add padding to the certain like fiber like i like i've never been able to do it but i've worked with network technicians who do all the time and i'm not really familiar on exactly how they do it but i would look online what padding is when they add padding to a to a cable when they add padding it reduces the light because sometimes the light hits too hot because if the light is too hot it's going to burn the optic but that sort of context is something that you need and you need you need to be able to speak with network technicians and actually interview them almost so i would talk to them on linkedin and get that context the context is the most important thing and if you guys want more context i have a whole program that pretty much covers the exact room up on how to become a network technician or engineer step by step we have a community of people who are thriving and learning in this industry so if you're interested in that there's a whole mentorship program on how to do it go ahead and click the link in the description but that's the best way guys is to is to learn from someone who's actively in the industry because i'm going to tell you this right now and this is where people mess up they this is what they do they just learn but they never actually spoken to someone in the industry so they have zero clue of what you're going to be doing on the job and having zero clue of what you're going to be doing the job is an absolute disaster an absolute disaster when it comes to landing your first job right because because when you interview they're like this guy does not know anything this person does not know anything of what they're doing on the job or like what this person what this kind of individual would do on the job so it's a really bad position to be in and something i don't recommend you guys do is is not reaching out to fellow network techs and actually meeting them and talk to them and seeing what they do on the job because that's a very impactful thing that i would definitely recommend right so once you've watched those videos on data centers you've spoken to data center techs you've done labs on data center topologies and you learn the theory the next thing i would focus on is now applying applying for jobs right so i would apply for jobs fang companies so fang is facebook apple amazon netflix and google these companies netflix maybe not because i don't think they ever have data centers but basically these companies right they need ai data centers to be built and they're hiring like crazy so i would look if you're willing to relocate i would look for search search search strategic areas that's a very hard word to say but i'll look for those specific areas that are hiring for those roles right and apply for those positions um and i would actually apply for amazon google whatever um and then once you get these interviews because you're going to get interviews once you get these interviews and by the way your resume has to be uptight you have to have network tech uh you know experience you have to put that on your resume so that you know what you're talking about all that stuff right once you've done that when you're interviewing you have to be able to explain the things that you've learned right in those labs you've done explain the process that you've done all those things you did on the uh about like what the network tech stuff how you clean fiber because they're going to ask you questions in those tech network tech interviews hey tell me like what you did on the on that like tell me about a time you had to troubleshoot something tell me about a time you had to do this tell me about a time you had to do that and those things matter because when you're interviewing you have to be able to be well spoken enough to for them to be like okay this person nobody's talking about they have the context i trust this person we're gonna hire you for the job right and that's kind of how it goes right um when it comes to network tech positions because it is as it is easier to get into than engineering because network engineering obviously requires you to have to know routing which is a very whole another beast you have to understand the cli you don't really have to know the cli as much as a network tech you are capped during pay but i've seen network techs make over six figures right especially in fang you can make really really good money the problem is that you know it is in the problem the problem is you can't get to like that 200 or 150k mark that you could potentially get as a network engineer so that's the only issue there i would say but it's a very phenomenal field you're you're racking and stacking right another thing i would also recommend you do if possible if you have the budget i would actually buy equipment actually for network techs and i always say when i talk to network for people who want to become network engineers i would say it's probably not worth it to buy equipment but if you're trying to be a network tech and that's your sole goal then i would say buying equipment may be advantageous because you can get that racking and stacking real life experience that you can only get with that physical hardware and on the job you're going to work with physical hardware so buying equipment i would buy equipment from ebay used equipment if possible because it's much more cost effective i'd buy a rack i'd buy multiple switches i'd buy maybe a small server and i'll just play around with it it is going to be loud it's going to be cumbersome it is going to be fun though and i'll buy a bunch of fiber optical cables i'd buy rj45 cables i would configure them troubleshoot them do things like clean the fiber to do things like rolling the fiber look it up on youtube on what that means i'm doing do those specific activities that network techs do and then just understand that like that's kind of like the experience you're going to have right and talk about that experience on your resume talk about that experience on your linkedin talk about that experience on your interview and after a certain number of interviews of them of you doing that you're going to be in a much better position than most people so that's really the only time i'd recommend buying hardware and also another thing i would do is as well is in order to talk about this before is you know when you're speaking with people ask them for advice on your on your network as well like what things should i do you know and sometimes it is hard to find genuine people who are like have time to help or or have good advice because some people don't have the best advice right uh some people just don't right so i'll look for people who who have you know who potentially came in the industry recently right on linkedin i would look for people who became network techs like three years ago because their advice is going to be very hot and actually very uh beneficial for you so that's something i would recommend for sure so that's pretty much it guys once you do all that whole process that is pretty much the roadmap to becoming a network tech in in today's market and like i said network tech data center tech is a phenomenal position to get into right now in today's market it's a position that i recommend for beginners to get into they do pay quite well and they are a fun field to work because you get to walk around touch equipment play around it is it is it is a fun field to work and um actually my next job i'm actually may move to becoming a data data center tech at some point because i just want to play around with the data center and actually touch equipment and move stuff around um it is it is a downgrade from network engineer but it is a fun field to work in the field that i think is is an interesting field and is a field that's actually more ai proof than any field in tech that i've found because you're actually touching hardware so nonetheless that is the roadmap to become a network tech like i said if you guys want a more in-depth mentorship program that shows you exactly how to do this step by step go ahead and click the link in the description but with that being said i really do appreciate you guys this time if you guys like the video be sure to give it a thumbs up if you guys have questions comments go ahead and put in the comment section below talk about your journey of a network tech and if you guys want to subscribe go ahead and click the subscribe button And I hope you guys all have a good rest of your day and peace.