Before applying for the dream job, in this case, network engineer, the fresher graduates must have enough information about the job role and responsibilities. The best way to acquire such information is by directly having a conversation with the professionals in the field which might help fresher graduates to get to know the skills and daily routine of the network engineer. This blog was prepared by carrying out research, in which sets of questions were asked to few network engineers, and their inferences were drawn. The questions were as follows
What does your workday look like?
Work is actually awesome. It’s all goes well until there’s some issue and you have to break your head in order to resolve it ASAP and taking precautions not to let it happen again. I have to keep on monitoring our network. So if there are any changes needed to be done, get routers/switches replaced so problems are not caused for end users. It’s all about making them happy. If there are any issues at server end, get to the root of it.
Kushal Chari, Network engineer at Alegra Broadband
I work as an (Network and SecOps) SME for an organisation, I attend major incident calls across the portfolio. Every day looks challenging with new reported issues. So summarising, my Workday looks cool and satisfying at the end after resolving major escalated issues.
Joseph Naveen Dolla, Infra technology Specialist-Network Security Operations at Cognizant
Life of network Engineer at workplace is different than other jobs because most of the time we have to work on live network it’s not an easy task .It is a really responsible job.
Satish Nare at Avi Electronics & Networks Pvt Ltd
Tools you used in your job?
Apps we are using for monitoring our network is Saturn Element Monitoring System to monitor end users connected to our OLT(Optical Line Transmission). Dude by Mikrotik this is the best basically allows us to monitor the whole network with graphical interface. It shows all the links, flow of traffic. Everything based on SNMP. When ever a line goes down, we get notifications on the Telegram app directly. Winbox to monitor traffic of both the WAN as well as LAN side.
Kushal Chari, Network engineer, Alegra Broadband
We will be using different tools like ZOC, PUTTY, Solarwinds, etc. for Networking Device access and monitoring.
Payal Dhaigude, Network Engineer at Sify Technologies Limited.
We have our own company server, tools, apart from those we use wireshark, DC agent, putty, iperf, windows server.
Adarsh Dasanati, Network Security Engineer
Key skills you used at your job?
Environmental knowledge on what I work on with packet level knowledge are key skills. Understanding issues logically and finding out where the issue exist is what I think is the best part in analyzing and troubleshooting issues using your in-depth knowledge and skills.
Joseph Naveen Dolla, Infra technology Specialist-Network Security Operations at Cognizant Â
General skills – To be highly attentive and professional while working with customers. You should be good with English speaking and writing emails. Must be specific to all queries of customers. and Being truth, if we don’t know any specific solutions, we should ask time from customers and discuss with team and get back to customer.
Networking – Course CCNA Routing and switching, CCNP Routing and switching, CCNA SECURITY, CCNP SECURITY, CCIE SECURITY.
PROTOCOLS – IPV4 , ROUTING, SWITCHING, DHCP,DNS, ARP, MAC BINDING, BGP,OSPF, SYSLOG STREAMING, SNMP, AV SERVICE , ETHERNET BUNDLES, ETC.
Adarsh Dasanati, Network Security Engineer
Key Skills which I use in day-to-day work are :Networking, Security , Communication Skills, Cisco Networking , Troubleshooting.
Payal Dhaigude, Network Engineer at Sify Technologies Limited.
Reason you felt that you got hired?
I spent around eight months to learn networking and two months to prepare for interviews so that I can make myself good at few Imp protocols/topics. Which helped me for interviews.
Adarsh Dasanati, Network Security Engineer
Reason I got hired is that, my employer identified my skillset and capabilities by scrutinizing to their best in interviews, Also The confidence in myself that obviously comes with lot of learning and practice that made me stand out of all the candidates that were interviewed in parallel for the same job position that I applied for.
Joseph Naveen Dolla, Infra technology Specialist-Network Security Operations at Cognizant
Career progression in this domain.
If you say for TAC , I would say there is lot of growth and you will get best salary as per your knowledge. So many companies out there they just need your knowledge and skills for the troubleshooting, they will pay you as much as you want.
Adarsh Dasanati, Network Security Engineer
Network and Security domain stands for ever even when the world or technology transforms, Networking is required to keep devices connect which will help people connected with the environment which they work with (either Traditional or emerging cloud technologies). Security stands up in all aspects as its almost the only solution or technology that keeps data or work environment safe.
So I summarise that career progression in this stream will always exists when we keep ourselves updated with evolving technologies. I would say, learn new things/Technologies around will make an individual outstanding in career. However multi domain knowledge will always help us find and fix issues as everything is interrelated when comes to technology.
Joseph Naveen Dolla, Infra technology Specialist-Network Security Operations at Cognizant
