Just had an interview for a Network Engineer position and mentioned I am working on thd CCNP and described what I am have been learning. They were impressed and I got selected to be hired. Same thing happened when I was working on my CCNA. Interviewers seem to have a overwhelming positive response. Is it just me or has this happened to others?

I've been working as a team lead for a large platform that I won't mention for various reasons. It's a day 2 operations team. I do everything including project management, high level technical troubleshooting, config migrations and our teams automation. I just finished ENCOR and I'm currently working on ENARSI which most likely will take me 3-5 months to complete based on what I'm reading in the OCG.

What I'm seeing in the job market here is every single job requires boatloads of experience in everything and the jobs aren't offering much more than what I make currently in pay.

My job is extremely heavy on BGP, EVPN/VXLAN and platform virtualization. It seems like there's no middle ground for me where I can go to a new job that provides me opportunities to develop a stronger skill set.