vic@lamfamily:~$ show route next-hop

A networking master, building the next hop.

For decades Vic Lam has carried enterprise traffic for a living: a Cisco systems-engineering leader, then a builder at the software-defined edge. The Cisco CLI taught him how the world actually connects. This is the home base for what he and Ilana route next.

01 / The shape an engineer thinks in

Every problem is a topology. Every future is a route you have not advertised yet.

A career in networking trains a specific instinct: see the nodes, find the path, watch where the traffic actually flows, then build the link that should have been there all along.

The known links are solid. The new route is dashed, drawn out from years of running production networks toward whatever comes next. The packets are already moving.

Established links The new route

The record reads like a traceroute. Every hop earned.

02 / show route detail

hop 1 Engineerthe fundamentals Started where every serious network person starts: in the CLI, on real gear, learning how packets, protocols, and people actually move through an enterprise. CCIE-grade depth, not slideware.

hop 2 Ciscosystems-engineering manager Grew into a systems-engineering leader at Cisco, the trusted technical voice in the room: architecting networks for large customers and building the engineers who built them. The job was translating hard infrastructure into outcomes people could trust.

hop 3 Nilethe software-defined edge Stepped to the frontier of how networks get delivered, where access is reimagined as a service rather than a closet full of boxes. Took decades of hard-won instinct into a new model of the network.

hop 4 Nowbetween roles, building Currently between roles and stepping into a new era deliberately. A master who knows the network end to end is exactly the person you want building what comes next. The CLI was always for the world, not just the data center.

The home network

Behind every good engineer is the network that matters most: the people on it.

node / 10.0.0.1

Vic

core router

Decades in enterprise networking, now routing the family toward its next chapter. Steady hands on the hard problems.

node / 10.0.0.2

Ilana

the constant

The partner in every decision and the steady signal behind the home base. Vic and Ilana build this next era together.

node / 10.0.0.3

The kids

new nodes, joining

A son provisions onto a new network this fall: Purdue, class entering 2026. New hops of his own, with home always one route away.

Every problem is a topology. Every future is a route you have not advertised yet.

The record reads like a traceroute. Every hop earned.

Behind every good engineer is the network that matters most: the people on it.

Vic

Ilana

The kids

The link is up. The next hop is ours to build.