Network Engineer

Credible resume terms

Terms that should plausibly appear on a real Network Engineer resume. “Must-have” marks the ones whose total absence is a genuine red flag.

• Routing & SwitchingMust-have

  The core of network engineering. Switches connect the devices inside one site's network (layer 2); routers move traffic between networks and sites (layer 3).

• CCNA / CCNP

  Cisco's networking certifications, in three steps: CCNA (associate, the entry level), CCNP (professional) and CCIE (expert, with a hard hands-on lab exam).

• BGP / OSPFMust-have

  Routing protocols: the rules routers use to tell each other which paths exist, so traffic finds its way automatically.

• VLANMust-have

  A way to split one physical network into separate virtual networks, so staff, guests, cameras and servers share the same switches without seeing each other's traffic.

• Subnetting / IP Addressing

  Planning the addresses devices use on a network: splitting address ranges into smaller blocks called subnets (written like 10.0.1.0/24), handing addresses out automatically (DHCP), and translating private addresses to public ones (NAT).

• OSI Model

  A seven-layer way of describing how network communication works, from cables and signals (layer 1) up to applications (layer 7).

• Next-Gen Firewalls (Palo Alto, Fortinet)

  The firewall products companies buy and run. Beyond allowing or blocking traffic, they recognise applications and users, inspect traffic for threats, and run VPNs.

• VPN

  A technology that creates an encrypted, private connection over a public network, commonly used so remote employees can securely reach internal company systems as if they were on the office network.

• SD-WAN / MPLS

  Ways of connecting a company's branches, offices and data centres into one network (the WAN, or wide area network).

• Enterprise Wi-Fi

  Designing and running Wi-Fi for offices, campuses, hospitals or warehouses: placing access points, managing them centrally through a controller or cloud dashboard (Cisco Meraki, Aruba), and setting up secure staff logins and guest access.

• Network Monitoring Tools

  Tools that watch network devices and servers: whether they're up, how busy each link is, and alerts when something fails.

• DNS

  The system that translates human-readable domain names (like example.com) into the IP addresses computers actually use to find each other on a network.

Network Engineer: screening questions

One question per core skill, must-haves first. Each term’s page shows what a junior and a senior answer sound like.

1. BGP / OSPF

   “Where did you use BGP: with an internet provider, between data centres, or into a cloud? What change did you make, and how did you make it safely?”

2. Routing & Switching

   “Tell me about a network outage you fixed. How did you work out whether it was a switching or a routing problem?”

3. VLAN

   “How did you decide which VLANs a site needed, and what's the worst VLAN or trunk problem you've fixed?”

4. CCNA / CCNP

   “Which Cisco certifications do you hold, and when did you pass them? What size of network have you configured and supported yourself?”

5. Next-Gen Firewalls (Palo Alto, Fortinet)

   “Which firewall vendors have you managed hands-on, and have you ever moved a firewall's rules from one vendor to another?”

Adjacent, but not real signal

These read as related, but they don’t tell you this candidate can do this job — they usually belong to one of the roles below.

• VPC

  An isolated, private section of a cloud provider's network where you control which resources can talk to each other and to the public internet.

• L1/L2/L3 Support

  How IT support is split by depth. L1 (the help desk or service desk) takes the first call and fixes common issues from a script; L2 handles problems that need hands-on technical work; L3 is the specialists or developers who fix the root cause in the system or code.

• Active Directory

  Microsoft's directory for company networks: it holds every user, computer and group, checks logins, and applies settings to machines through Group Policy (GPOs).

Most often confused with

• System Administrator

  Keeps a company's servers and core IT services running: Windows and Linux servers, Active Directory, virtualization, backups, storage and Microsoft 365. Runs and fixes existing systems more than it automates new ones, which is where it differs from DevOps.

• Network Security Engineer

Network Engineer: search strings