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A Cisco certification is a quality assurance stamp on the person holding that certification. When you talk with someone who has a certification, they start to shine and show their expertise.

Principal consulting engineer

David Peñaloza Seijas

"The journey is as important as a goal. Appreciate your ability to just learn and find satisfaction in that. Over time, you might get the feeling that it’s time for an improvement—time to get to a higher place and set yourself for more ambitious goals, like an expert-level certification."

How it all began

Giving and getting back

Giving and getting back

From the age of 12 to 16 or so, I was trying to fix problems in my own computer. I had to learn ways to disable services and tweak it so that my very slow computer would perform like a not-so-slow computer. I managed to learn how to break and not break things, and, over time, I continued doing this—not just for my computer but also for my friends’ computers. It grew into something bigger. I started to charge people for what I had been doing for free. By age 19, I ended up founding my own company.

In about 2021, a friend told me to join him on Saturdays for a Cisco Networking Academy course. The course made me decide that maybe networking is my thing. I ended up going to the Networking Academy because I liked what I was learning and was bitten by the curiosity bug.

Giving and getting back

After I graduated from the academy, I had the opportunity to become an academy instructor. In the meantime, I was also contributing to Cisco Learning Network. Through my Cisco Learning Network interactions, I received recommendations to help me find a job overseas. Eventually, I got a job offer in the Czech Republic to work for IBM as a data center specialist. By that time, I had earned three CCNA certifications. Cisco certifications definitely changed my life by allowing me to rebuild it to something else.

After two and a half years with IBM, I moved to Verizon as a principal engineer. I’ve also been contributing to Cisco Learning Network for about seven or eight years, and have been selected as a Cisco VIP by Cisco Learning Network and a Cisco Insider Champion by Cisco. My story wouldn’t be complete without my CCDE certification journey. After failing the exam seven times in about seven years, I earned my CCDE certification in October of last year.

About David

Certifications

CCNA
CCNP Data Center
CCNP Enterprise
CCNP Service Provider
CyberOps Associate
DevNet Associate
CCDE

Location

Prague, Czech Republic

Hobbies

Exercise
Traveling
Cooking
Meeting with friends

What does having a Cisco Certification mean to you?

"Certifications are a recognition of your determination. It’s a reminder that each one of us can actually make it. You just have to find the strength to keep pushing to learn the things that you have to improve on, to understand where you are and what you can do."

It's also a matter of being pursued. There is a huge value on it, not because of the certification itself, but because of the journey—accumulating that knowledge, understanding and making it yours, and being able to then defend all that in an exam that's testing you at your peak performance. It's quite an achievement, and getting there requires plenty of preparation. You don’t become an expert overnight. It’s a huge set of stairs that you take one step at a time.
David Peñaloza

What would you tell your younger self?

Don’t try to prevent yourself from making mistakes. Just keep pushing forward. People don't learn when they don't make mistakes. They learn when they do make mistakes and hit a wall. Find ways to motivate yourself.

Be ready to be wrong. If you're going to bring your pride here, you're coming to the wrong place. There will always be somebody who knows more than you. You must be open-minded, so that you can learn rather than getting annoyed.

What would you tell a friend?

Be ambitious. Be hungry. You will need that motivation. You need as much discipline as curiosity. If you're disciplined, then you will continue every day, regardless of whether you feel like doing it or not. You will be consistent.

Tinker with things. Be curious. Don't just check when things work. What about when they don't work? Find out why.

Read more certification success stories

Ben Harting

"I’ve gained more knowledge and different skill sets. I’ve opened myself up for more opportunities. And it’s a validation of me and what I’ve learned."

Configuration engineer
CCNA

Read Ben's story

Mira Eilenstein

"Cisco certifications are food for my brain. Cisco is known to have difficult exams. I could pass an exam from some unknown vendor, but it wouldn't help me. Plus, just having a Cisco certification opens doors."

Senior security consultant
CCNA, CyberOps Associate, DevNet Associate, CCNP Security

Read Mira's story

Elvin Arias Soto

"Getting certified changed my life, literally. It helped me advance professionally, but it has also had an impact on my personal life as well."

CloudOps engineer
CCNA, CCDP, CCDA, CCNP, CCIE

Read Elvin's story
View all success stories

Share your Cisco Certification Success Story

Has earning a Cisco certification positively changed your life or career, or both? Do you think your Cisco certification story would help encourage other people to earn their Cisco certification? If so, we want to talk to you!