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The differences between firewall engineers and senior network engineers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 1-2 years to become both a firewall engineer and a senior network engineer. Additionally, a senior network engineer has an average salary of $111,707, which is higher than the $99,357 average annual salary of a firewall engineer.
The top three skills for a firewall engineer include network security, cisco asa and azure. The most important skills for a senior network engineer are switches, BGP, and OSPF.
| Firewall Engineer | Senior Network Engineer | |
| Yearly salary | $99,357 | $111,707 |
| Hourly rate | $47.77 | $53.71 |
| Growth rate | 5% | 5% |
| Number of jobs | 39,291 | 35,428 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 68% | Bachelor's Degree, 65% |
| Average age | 43 | 43 |
| Years of experience | 2 | 2 |
A firewall engineer is concerned about the safety and security of company websites from online attacks. A firewall is a safety measure to help protect the company's information infrastructure or business connected to the internet. The firewall engineer creates, develops, and maintains the company's online security and regularly checks websites for breaches, flaws in the code, and other technical things required to protect a company from outside internet attacks and hacking.
A senior network engineer is responsible for managing the organization's network infrastructure, handling advanced network issues, upgrading the system's design for optimization, configuring network features, and ensuring the network's highest security measures to avoid unauthorized access and suspicious activities. Senior network engineers work with network architects to implement network designs, run diagnostic tests, and create network solution reports for review and recovery reference. A senior network engineer must have excellent communication and organization skills and broad knowledge of the technology industry, programming languages, and system codes.
Firewall engineers and senior network engineers have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Firewall Engineer | Senior Network Engineer | |
| Average salary | $99,357 | $111,707 |
| Salary range | Between $76,000 And $128,000 | Between $85,000 And $145,000 |
| Highest paying City | Santa Clara, CA | San Francisco, CA |
| Highest paying state | California | Washington |
| Best paying company | Palo Alto Networks | The Citadel |
| Best paying industry | Start-up | Finance |
There are a few differences between a firewall engineer and a senior network engineer in terms of educational background:
| Firewall Engineer | Senior Network Engineer | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 68% | Bachelor's Degree, 65% |
| Most common major | Computer Science | Electrical Engineering |
| Most common college | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | - |
Here are the differences between firewall engineers' and senior network engineers' demographics:
| Firewall Engineer | Senior Network Engineer | |
| Average age | 43 | 43 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 93.4% Female, 6.6% | Male, 93.2% Female, 6.8% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 8.0% Unknown, 5.0% Hispanic or Latino, 11.7% Asian, 13.9% White, 61.1% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3% | Black or African American, 8.2% Unknown, 5.0% Hispanic or Latino, 11.9% Asian, 13.5% White, 61.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3% |
| LGBT Percentage | 9% | 9% |