About

Terry Kim

Host / CEO of NexGenT

Terry Kim is an entrepreneur and engineer who has worked in industry leading tech companies such as Cisco Systems, Arista Networks, and Dimension Data. Terry is also a United States Air Force veteran who served as a technical instructor and trained hundreds of network engineers to be job ready for the military.

So... do you have what it takes to become a Rockstar SE? Listen in daily and we'll help you get there!

Each week we bring you interviews of the most successful engineers and thought leaders working in the IT space across technologies like datacenter, virtualization, cloud, networking, collaboration and security. Listen in as you will gain insights, strategies, tips and more to help you level up along your journey in becoming a Rockstar SE!

Our show is 100% free and is created for all aspiring students or IT professionals who are destined to become a rockstar IT engineer. The typical path may look something like this: Entry Level IT Job > Network Tech > Network Engineer > Sr. Network Engineer > Systems Engineer or Architect.

So what is "Systems Engineering" and what does an "SE" do. Let's go ahead and define that now. Systems Engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering that focuses on how to design and manage complex engineering systems over their life cycles. In our world an SE is able to design and/or implement a manufacturer's (For example Cisco) wide portfolio of products spanning across multiple technologies for a customer. An SE needs to be able to translate business and technical requirements into an overall system architecture that creates the best operational capability for a business. This should provide great Return on Investment (ROI) and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) over the lifespan of the solution. This job can be also referred to as Solutions Architect, Network Architect or even Principal Consultant in our career field. Some choose to be a generalist while others will specialize in one area such as cyber security or data center for example.

Why choose this field? Well, first of all... if you love computers, the internet, and technology really excites you, then IT Systems Engineering is a great career for you to be in. By 2018, worldwide networked devices will reach 20+ billion. Networking is one of the most in demand careers and ever growing. CNN Money and Glass Door ranks the "Network Engineer" job as one of the top 20 jobs to have in the US. According to CCN Money the 10 year job growth is 27.8% and puts total jobs at 347,200 with a median salary of $73,400 and top pay of $104,000. However if you master some other needed skills to become a rockstar "SE" you can achieve salaries north of $175,000 or more. Just look at this snapshot of national average salaries across 167 salaries for consulting "Systems Engineers" from Glass Door.