What does a Network Engineer do?

A Network Engineer designs, builds, and maintains the networks a company runs on: switches, routers, firewalls, wireless, VPNs, and cloud connectivity. They monitor performance, troubleshoot outages and slowdowns, enforce network security policies, and plan capacity so the network scales with the business.

What is the difference between a Network Engineer and a Systems Engineer?

A Network Engineer owns connectivity: routing, switching, firewalls, and traffic between systems. A Systems Engineer owns the servers and platforms that traffic flows to. The roles collaborate constantly during troubleshooting, and smaller companies often combine them into one infrastructure position.

What skills should I look for when hiring a Network Engineer?

Test protocol fundamentals first, especially TCP/IP, DNS, and routing behavior, since tools change but fundamentals do not. Then check hands-on experience with your vendor stack, firewall and VPN administration, and structured troubleshooting. Automation skills separate forward-looking candidates from purely reactive ones.

Is CCNA or CCNP certification necessary for a Network Engineer?

Not strictly, but they are useful signals. CCNA validates solid fundamentals for junior and mid-level hires, and CCNP indicates deeper design and troubleshooting skill. Weigh certifications alongside real experience: a candidate who has run a multi-site production network can outperform a certified candidate who has not.

Network Engineer Job Description

When this role is vacant nobody notices until something degrades, and then everybody notices at once. Every other technical team is built on top of the network, which is why the vacancy tends to be urgent and the hiring bar tends to be high. It is also why candidates judge the posting on how precisely it describes the environment they would inherit.

The draft below spans routing, switching, firewalls, wireless, and cloud connectivity, which is broader than most single roles. Narrow it to your own topology. State the number of sites, the users behind them, the data center and cloud footprint, and the vendors you have standardized on, because a candidate deep in one vendor stack will assess the fit immediately.

Security belongs inside this description rather than beside it. Firewall policy, segmentation, and remote access are routine parts of the job now, and a posting that treats them as somebody else's problem reads as dated. Say what on-call and site travel really involve. The generator below can produce an enterprise, cloud-first, or data center version.

Written by Yağmur Erge, HR Content Specialist at Hirex. Reviewed by the Hirex Recruitment Team.
Last updated August 26, 2026.

Hiring a Network Engineer? Post this job for free and collect applications in one dashboard.

Post this job for free

About the Network Engineer role

A Network Engineer designs, implements, and maintains the networks that connect a company's people, offices, data centers, and cloud environments. The work spans routing and switching, firewalls and VPNs, wireless, and increasingly cloud networking. When the network degrades, everything built on top of it degrades with it, so this role is foundational to every other technical team.

The role looks different across environments. An enterprise with multiple offices needs deep routing, WAN, and wireless expertise. A cloud-first company needs VPC design, hybrid connectivity, and network automation. Service providers and data centers demand yet another profile. Describe your topology honestly: sites, users, data centers, cloud footprint, and the vendors you standardize on.

Security now sits inside the role rather than beside it. Firewall policy, network segmentation, zero-trust access, and VPN management are routine expectations for a modern Network Engineer. Also state on-call requirements and travel between sites if any, since both strongly influence who applies.