Back in the day, and I’m rewinding about 15 years here, finding people to talk networking with was hard. This is coming from someone who worked in New York City, where you’d think there would be tech meetups on every corner. Maybe it was because I was an introvert, who knows to be honest.
Fast forward to 2021. A good friend of mine put out a post on LinkedIn asking if anyone wanted to start a network user group in Florida, and I said yes before I even researched what I was signing up for. Turns out it was a NUG, part of the US Networking User Association (USNUA), and I’d never heard of either one.
Almost five years later I’m still co-running (FL)NUG, and I’d bet a lot of network engineers still haven’t heard of a NUG either. Before I get into what it is, a little backstory on why I said yes so fast.
Even New York felt small
When I was starting out in this industry, finding like-minded people was hard. Not hard in some rural town with one data center. Hard in New York City, surrounded by millions of people and more enterprise networks per square mile than almost anywhere on earth.
Then I stumbled onto a group called NYCNetworkers. They didn’t just let me sit in the back. They let me get up front and present, more than once. I taught a class on MPLS and another on load balancing, and standing in front of that room did more for my understanding than any book I’d read. You don’t really know a protocol until someone asks you a question about it you can’t dodge.
Look at these pictures. Man, did I look young and full of life.
Then I moved to Atlanta, and it was like starting from the beginning again. That NYC group was the exception back then, and I didn’t find anything like it again until the USNUA.
So what is the USNUA?
The USNUA is a national network of local meetups run by network engineers, for network engineers. It started in 2017 and now has 33 chapters across the country. Every event is free to attend.
Chapters are named after their state. Florida is (FL)NUG, Washington is (WA)NUG, Minnesota is (MN)NUG. Each one has a small crew of volunteer group leaders who book the venue, line up speakers and make sure there’s enough pizza. Bigger states sometimes have more than one chapter, or rotate between cities. We do that in Florida.
What a NUG Night actually looks like
Picture an evening at a brewery, a hotel event space or a sponsor’s office. There’s food, there’s drink, and there’s a lineup of talks from people doing the work. Topics run the full stack: routing, data center, SDN, cloud, automation, security, observability.
The typical night has a keynote speaker and my personal favorite, the panel session. Depending on the event, the group leader might drive the questions. What I’ve seen work best is a mix: questions pulled from the keynote, plus an open AMA from the audience.
Vendors do sponsor these events, and that’s what keeps the food free. The line is clear, though. Sponsors support the night; they don’t pitch the room. You can ask the hard question without bracing for a follow-up call from a sales rep.
Why this matters for your career
After 20 years in this field, here’s what I’ve seen. The engineers who grow fastest aren’t always the ones with the most certs. They’re the ones who know who to call. A NUG puts you in a room with those people every few months, for free.
You learn what’s next before it’s on the exam. Certification tracks lag the real world. At a NUG you’ll hear how someone actually rolled out EVPN, automated their change process or untangled a cloud networking mess. You get the version with the scars left in.
You find mentors without having to ask for one. Nobody walks up and says “will you mentor me?” It happens over a second conversation, then a LinkedIn message, then a coffee. Senior engineers show up to NUGs precisely because they like talking about this stuff. I’m one of them.
You hear about jobs that never get posted. Hiring managers attend. Recruiters who actually understand networking attend. Plenty of roles get filled with “I met someone at the NUG who’d be perfect.”
You get practice presenting in a friendly room. That MPLS class I taught in NYC was my first real technical talk, and it happened because a local group gave me the stage. A NUG is the lowest-stakes, highest-support room you’ll find. The audience wants you to win.
You don’t have to be a network engineer. Sysadmins, help desk folks, security analysts, students and career switchers all belong here. A lot of the room at our most recent event was new to tech. All you need is curiosity.
From 15 people to 60: How (FL)NUG grew
I didn’t start (FL)NUG alone, and my buddy deserves the credit for that original post. What I wanted out of it was simple: build the group I’d found in NYC and never found again in Atlanta. A place to meet people you’d never otherwise cross paths with and learn about new tech without a sales guy breathing down your neck.
Florida is a big state, so we knew from the start we didn’t want to limit ourselves to Jacksonville. We rotate between Jacksonville and Tampa and try to show all three cities the same love.
Here’s how far we’ve come:
- Our first event was November 4, 2021, at Intuition Ale Works in Jacksonville. About 15 people showed up, and honestly, most of them were sponsors.
- Our most recent one, April 23, 2026, at Aardwolf Brewing, pulled in almost 60. A lot of them were brand new to tech and came out for the personal branding talk I gave.
- In Tampa, we’ve hosted a few at CopperTail Brewing. The most recent one featured a talk on Containerlab and why it’s how the cool kids build labs these days.
Every NUG feels like home (even 3,000 miles away)
I’ve gotten to visit other NUGs and collaborate with their group leaders. Most recently I was a guest panelist at (WA)NUG in Seattle.
I’ll admit it. Running your own group doesn’t make you immune to walking-into-a-new-room nerves. But Eric and his team made me feel welcome before they even knew I ran the Florida group. Once that came out over food, we spent the rest of the mingle swapping notes. He wanted to know how we run panels, so I told him our secret: we mix it up, we tell panelists the plan ahead of time, and nobody has to answer anything they’re not comfortable with.
The night itself felt almost exactly like one of ours. Mingle, food, keynote, break, panel. That’s the beauty of the format. Go to one NUG, and you can walk into any NUG in the country and know what to expect.
Then came the panel. Brent was sitting right in the projector’s path, so he, Tyler and Lexie all slid down a few seats, leaving a very noticeable gap between me and everyone else. So I asked the room, “Are you all moving away from me because I smell, because I’m from Florida, or both?”
The crowd lost it. And that’s the vibe. Nobody’s wearing a suit, and nobody’s pretending to have it all figured out.
How to show up (and what to do when you get there)
Nervous about walking in alone? Everyone is the first time. Here’s the cheat code: find someone standing by the food and ask what they’re running in their environment. Network engineers will talk for twenty minutes about their routing design if you let them. You won’t have to carry the conversation.
Getting involved takes almost no effort:
- Head to usnua.com and find the chapter nearest you.
- Register for the next event. It’s free.
- Show up, grab a plate and introduce yourself to one person you don’t know.
- Come back next time. The second meeting is where it starts to feel like your community.
- When you’re ready, volunteer, offer a talk or help organize. That’s how chapters stay alive.
No chapter in your area? Then your area’s waiting on someone, and it might as well be you. Every NUG on the map started because one person decided their city needed it. If that’s you, here’s how to start a chapter.
Your move
The USNUA built something our industry needed for a long time: a neutral, sales-free place where network engineers at every level can learn out loud and find each other. It only works because people keep showing up.
If you’re in Florida and see one of our NUGs on the calendar, register. When you get there, find me. I’ll say hi and buy you a drink.
So here’s my question for you: when’s the last time you were in a room where everyone spoke your language?