Network Engineer Job Description
A complete network engineer job description template, the ATS keywords hiring teams screen for, and why the certification asked for rarely fits.
"Network Engineer" and "Network Administrator" get used interchangeably in postings far more than the actual work is interchangeable. Engineer generally implies design: planning a WAN topology, deciding where a new site's circuit terminates, working out how two companies' networks merge without an outage. Administrator generally means running what's already designed: swapping a failed switch, pushing a firmware update, working a ticket queue. A posting titled "engineer" that's mostly day-two operational bullets is describing an administrator job at an engineer's title — which affects both what the work looks like and what it should pay.
Certifications follow a pattern worth knowing before you read too much into one line of a posting: CCNA is the realistic baseline signal at this level. CCIE is an expert credential meant for people designing networks at real scale, and seeing it requested for a mid-level operational role is roughly the same mismatch CISSP creates elsewhere in IT and security — usually inherited from a template written for a more senior requisition, not a genuine floor.
The work itself is also changing shape. Increasingly, "network engineer" includes cloud networking — VPCs, transit gateways, SD-WAN — layered on top of traditional routing and switching, rather than being purely one or the other. A posting that's silent on the split between the two is worth a direct question in the first conversation, especially if your background leans heavily toward one side.
Ormsbury · Portland, OR
Full-time · Hybrid
$92,000 – $120,000
About the role
Ormsbury connects offices in Denver, Chicago, Raleigh and Portland to two AWS regions over a private WAN, and this role keeps that backbone running. We're hiring a Network Engineer to own routing, switching and firewall configuration for our Portland office and to work alongside the platform team on the cloud-networking half of the environment.
This is a hands-on role with real design responsibility — you'll be the person who plans how a new office or acquisition gets connected, not just the person who replaces a failed switch after the fact.
What you'll do
- Design, configure and maintain routing and switching across our office and data center network.
- Manage firewall rules and network segmentation between production, corporate and guest networks.
- Own site-to-site VPN and private WAN connectivity between our four offices and our AWS environment.
- Monitor network performance and capacity, and plan upgrades before they become incidents.
- Troubleshoot and resolve escalated connectivity issues that IT support couldn't close.
- Maintain network documentation: topology diagrams, IP address allocation, firewall rule justifications.
- Support cloud networking work — VPCs, transit gateways, security groups — alongside the platform team.
- Share an on-call rotation for network incidents, roughly one week in five.
What we're looking for
- 3+ years in network engineering or network administration, with real routing and switching experience.
- Solid understanding of TCP/IP, VLANs and firewall rule design.
- Hands-on experience with enterprise networking hardware: Cisco, Juniper, Fortinet, or similar.
- Experience with site-to-site VPN and WAN connectivity between multiple locations.
- Clear network documentation habits — the next engineer should be able to read your diagrams without calling you.
- Comfort being the person paged when the office network goes down.
Nice to have
- CCNA, with CCNP in progress or completed.
- Exposure to SD-WAN platforms.
- Experience with cloud networking: AWS VPCs and transit gateways, or Azure virtual networks.
- Scripting for network automation (Python, Ansible) rather than configuring devices by hand every time.
- Prior experience connecting or migrating offices during a merger or office move.
Benefits
- Medical, dental and vision coverage, with employee premiums covered in full.
- 401(k) with a 4% company match.
- Hybrid schedule: three days a week in the Portland office.
- $2,000 annual learning budget for training, conferences or certification exams.
- Twenty days of paid time off plus company holidays.
Salary range
As posted for this sample role. Real pay varies by employer, location and experience.
$92,000–$120,000/ yr
ATS keywords for this role
The applicant tracking system (ATS) — the recruiting software a hiring team searches and filters applicants with — will screen for these. Weight shows how central each one is to this specific posting.
Required and central (3)
Important (7)
Mentioned in passing (8)
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between a network engineer and a network administrator?
Engineer generally implies design work; administrator generally implies operating what's already built. In practice the titles blend, and the responsibilities list is a better guide than the title itself — a posting titled 'engineer' that's mostly ticket-queue and swap-the-switch work is really describing an administrator role.
Do I need a CCIE for a mid-level role like this?
No. CCIE is an expert credential meant for people designing networks at real scale, and asking for it at mid-level is disproportionate to the work. CCNA is the realistic baseline here, and CCNP is a strong signal of growth toward more senior design work.
Is network engineering being replaced by cloud networking?
Not replaced, but blending. Most network engineer roles today mix traditional routing and switching with some amount of cloud networking — VPCs, transit gateways. Check how much of each a specific posting actually expects before assuming a background heavy on one side is a mismatch for the other.
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