Network engineers are responsible for implementing, maintaining, supporting, developing and, in some cases, designing communication networks within an organization or between organizations.
Their goal is to ensure the integrity of high availability network infrastructure to provide maximum performance for their users. Users may be staff, clients, customers and suppliers.
Network engineers may work internally as part of an organization’s IT support team, or externally as part of an outsourced IT networking consultancy firm working with a number of clients, including:
network architect;
network/ help desk support;
first/second-line support;
IT/systems support engineer;
VoIP/Cisco engineer.
network administrator;
support/security/systems engineer;
Types of network
You could work with a variety of network types, such as:
LANs - local area networks, linking a limited area such as a home, office or a small group of buildings;
WLAN - wireless local area network;
WANs - wide area networks, which link nationally or internationally;
VoIP - voice over internet protocol network.
SAN - storage/system/server/small area network;
Responsibilities
Network engineer will handle
Reporting network operational status by gathering and prioritizing information and managing projects;
Maximizing network performance by monitoring performance, troubleshooting network problems and outages, scheduling upgrades and collaborating with network architects on network optimization;
Liaising with project management teams, third-line engineers and service desk engineers on a regular basis;
Remote support of on-site engineers and end users/customers during installation;
Configuring of firewalls;
Remote troubleshooting and fault finding if issues occur upon initial installation;
Supporting and administrating of firewall environments in line with IT security policy;
Upgrading data network equipment to the latest stable firmware releases;
Configuring of routing and switching equipment;
Undertaking data network fault investigations in local and wide area environments, using information from multiple sources;
Capacity management and audit of IP addressing and hosted devices within data centers;
Configuring of hosted IP voice services;
Establishing the networking environment by designing system configuration, directing system installation, defining, documenting and enforcing system standards;
Securing network systems by establishing and enforcing policies, and defining and monitoring access;
Speaking with customers via email and phone for initial requirement capture.
Updating job knowledge by participating in educational opportunities, reading professional publications, maintaining personal networks and participating in professional organizations;
Designing and implementing of new solutions and improving resilience of the current environment;
Manufactures
Network engineer should have to demonstrate capability of understanding and configuring network devices from one of follow equipment manufactures:
Cisco
HP
Brocade
Palo Alto
Nokia
Fortinet
Dell
IBM
Certification requires
Network engineer should have at least one of following networking certificates
Linux Enterprise Professional (LPIC-3x)
Linux Engineer (LPIC-2)
Fortinet Network Security Professional
Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)
Cisco Certified Networking Professional (CCNP)
Fortinet Network Security Analyst
Brocade Professional SAN
Palo Alto Networks Certified Network Security Engineer
Cisco Certified Associate Networking (CCNA)
Microsoft Certified Solution Expert (MCSE) – Server Infrastructure