E98 - Adrian Iliesiu at Cisco

On our 98^th episode, our Senior Vice President Antonio Costa was joined by Adrian Iliesiu, the Senior Technical Leader at Cisco. Adrian discusses his experience moving to multiple countries throughout his career and how he adapted to the different cultures. He talks us through the exciting things he’s worked on over at Cisco over the years and his plans for the future.

Adrian’s journey started back in Romania where he’s originally from. He started his college education and there was an English-taught class over there to teach international students and luckily enough he got accepted. He did his college degree in Media but in the English language. That opened up a few doors for him, one of them being discovering Cisco Networking Academy which he took on and did all 4 CCNA courses. He loved the hands-on side of it so when he graduated from college, he went straight into an internship in Bulgaria with a company that was partnered with Cisco. They opened an office in Romania in 2006 which is where he became full-time. He moved to Ixia working on the HLT API and then relocated to the Czech Republic to AT&T. There was a big push to bring people in from all over the world at that time, so he was in a group from all walks of life and many cultures.

He decided it was time to start getting his certs at this point so got his CCNA and CCNP and then relocated again to Canada. He started looking at the Juniper certs and ended up getting to the professional level. He was questioning whether to do the CCIE at this stage because it was the next in line for him. It was a huge challenge, but he went for it. he prepped for a year and a half and in 2014 he took it and passed the first time. It was a challenge for him but also very rewarding to get the knowledge as it brings your knowledge to the next level.

Relocating from Romania to the Czech Republic, to Canada and then to the USA was a great experience working in such a variety of different places with different people from all different backgrounds and cultures. To ensure it was enjoyable he had to ensure he was adaptable. For anyone else who was considering relocating make sure you don’t generalise and keep an open mind. There are different people with different experiences so enjoy it and learn as you are all there to learn from each other.

One thing you were taught that you think everyone should know?

During a long and exciting career in the Networking space, one thing Adrian has been taught that everyone should know is that everyone needs to be kind to each other. Especially when you are working in different environments with different people. Try to understand other people’s points of view and choose to be mindful.

Cisco…

Adrian has been at Cisco for 7 years now where he has done a multitude of roles during his time there. Some of the projects he has worked on throughout the years include building infrastructure for events like Cisco Live etc. He’s built a data centre as well as Routing, Switching, Firewalling etc. He eventually moved into co-creations and has been heavily involved in the DevNet side. 

Adrian shares what’s next for him in the future… For someone who has had an exciting journey this far, you don’t want to miss it!