Brief Summary

I have over 30 years’ experience in the IT industry, most of which has been spent in networking/telecoms in the UK/EMEA and NZ/APAC.  I have worked in varied roles such as technical consulting, network design and architecture, pre-sales support, operational support and software engineering.  I moved to New Zealand in 2008, where I worked in several roles before returning to the UK in 2022.

My experience has been gained in a wide range of organisations, from start-ups, through enterprises and to large service providers and telcos.  I have worked in both team environments and on an individual and independent basis.  In recent years, I have also done a lot of my work in the public sector.

Though performing hands-on work is not as regular as it used to be, it has been a strong element in my previous work, when I gained satisfaction from performing proof-of-concepts before deploying to production environments.  I first started working with Cisco in 1994, and with Juniper in 1999.

I very much enjoy customer-facing roles since no two customers are alike, and so the variety this gives is always a challenge that I am keen to take on.  Taking part in technical discussions with customers forms a key part of being able to fully understand their requirements, which is essential to being able to deliver a successful solution.

Latest News and Useful Articles                — Updated: 4 September 2026 —

• OpenAI agents hijacked German website before HF attack.  [BBC News]  [Engadget]

• The future of network engineering is bigger than networking.  [vStaub]

• Define your segmentation policy first.  [vStaub]

• Network automation does not end at deployment.  [vStaub]

• What architects actually produce.  [vStaub]

• An architect is more than a lead engineer.  [vStaub]

• AI can write architecture documents, but not create alignment.  [vStaub]

• AI-assisted network engineering is not automation.  [vStaub]

• Researching employment scams.  [Schneier]  [Any.Run]

• BGP-free core with SR-MPLS.  [ipSpace]

• 33-hour BGP hijack prompts security scramble.  [The Register]

• AI agents email me with their security concerns.  [Schneier]

• Wireless routers as motion detectors.  [Schneier]

• Networking aspects of running VMs in containers.  [ipSpace]

A more comprehensive news/article list can be found on my networks sub-domain here.

Click for the latest full version of my CV, or find me on LinkedIn — Credly — X / Twitter.

rob (at) larsenconsulting (dot) net

© Robert Larsen.  All rights reserved.