what's the difference of Network engineer and Network support engineer?:)

[from88]

Hello, i'm browsing job ads and some are offering network engineer job, and others Network support engineer... what's the difference between them? thanks..;)

[John Blakley]

The terms can be interchangeable, so read the description of the job requirements. A network support engineer could be someone that only supports the existing infrastructure and may not have any influence in the design of the network, whereas the Network Engineer may be involved in projects from beginning to end. Companies can use these titles though to describe the same exact job function. I would double check the requirements and see what the differences are. The most important thing is that you can do whatever job function you're applying for.

HTH,
John

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[devils_advocate]

I would echo what John has already said, the job titles could mean the same thing to some companies and different things to another, it depends on who has written the job advert.

The job description should tell you what you need to know.

John makes a good point about the design and project element. I would class a Network Support Engineer as somebody who supports the network infrastructure, i.e troubleshooting issues, upgrades and maintenence etc. Keeping the roof on as they call it. A network engineer would have a more active role in project work and likely design work, bigger companies may have an Architect for the design work but often the Senior Network Engineers carry out this role.,

[Jon Marshall]

As both John and devils advocate have said you really need to look at the job requirements.

Certainly here in the UK i have seen a lot of jobs advertised as network engineer jobs and then the actual requirements are some Cisco experience and some experience with Windows AD/Linux etc.

A lot depends on the size of the company advertising the job eg. in my last company we had network operations engineers, network implementation engineers and network architects but a lot of smaller companies roll all those functions into one title.

Also worth bearing in mind that a lot of the job specs are not necessarily written by network people so the requirements can be a bit random to say the least

Jon