Infrastructure architect vs senior system administrator

The differences between infrastructure architects and senior system administrators can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. Additionally, an infrastructure architect has an average salary of $119,786, which is higher than the $98,146 average annual salary of a senior system administrator.

The top three skills for an infrastructure architect include cloud, azure and amazon web services. The most important skills for a senior system administrator are linux, windows server, and troubleshoot.

Infrastructure architect vs senior system administrator overview

	Infrastructure Architect	Senior System Administrator
Yearly salary	$119,786	$98,146
Hourly rate	$57.59	$47.19
Growth rate	5%	5%
Number of jobs	102,531	100,873
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 67%	Bachelor's Degree, 62%
Average age	44	43
Years of experience	-	2

What does an infrastructure architect do?

An infrastructure architect specializes in designing and establishing information systems to optimize business procedures and company operations, ensuring efficiency and smooth workflow. Their responsibilities revolve around performing research and assessments to identify company needs, evaluate existing systems to determine its strengths and weaknesses, and present recommendations to senior officers or executives. Furthermore, an infrastructure architect must spearhead the integration and innovation of systems and technologies, all while adhering to the company's policies and regulations, including its vision and mission.

What does a senior system administrator do?

A senior system administrator specializes in overseeing the computer system operations in an organization. Their responsibilities primarily revolve around monitoring the performance of all software and hardware, installing servers, configuring systems, and making sure every technical aspect is running smoothly. Should there be any issues, they must take charge of troubleshooting and providing solutions. As someone with more experience, a senior system administrator leads and evaluates the performances of fellow skilled professionals in the department, all while adhering to the company's policies and regulations.

Infrastructure architect vs senior system administrator salary

Infrastructure architects and senior system administrators have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Infrastructure Architect	Senior System Administrator
Average salary	$119,786	$98,146
Salary range	Between $94,000 And $152,000	Between $75,000 And $126,000
Highest paying City	San Francisco, CA	San Francisco, CA
Highest paying state	Oregon	California
Best paying company	Grubhub	Cambridge Associates
Best paying industry	Hospitality	Finance

Differences between infrastructure architect and senior system administrator education

There are a few differences between an infrastructure architect and a senior system administrator in terms of educational background:

	Infrastructure Architect	Senior System Administrator
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 67%	Bachelor's Degree, 62%
Most common major	Computer Science	Computer Science
Most common college	Stanford University	Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Infrastructure architect vs senior system administrator demographics

Here are the differences between infrastructure architects' and senior system administrators' demographics:

	Infrastructure Architect	Senior System Administrator
Average age	44	43
Gender ratio	Male, 93.4% Female, 6.6%	Male, 89.0% Female, 11.0%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 6.2% Unknown, 4.7% Hispanic or Latino, 8.8% Asian, 12.0% White, 67.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.5%	Black or African American, 8.9% Unknown, 5.1% Hispanic or Latino, 12.6% Asian, 11.8% White, 61.4% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3%
LGBT Percentage	11%	9%

Differences between infrastructure architect and senior system administrator duties and responsibilities

Infrastructure architect example responsibilities.

Improve LDAP ACI management which give the project ability to manage ACI's via grouper rather than case by case basis.
Manage global voice communications both traditional and VoIP telephony.
Manage all UNIX environments, installations, configurations and implementations.
Leverage SharePoint to automate business processes and track historical data.
Manage Cisco ASA firewalls and Microsoft ISA firewalls in production environment providing secure configurations and monitoring of the firewall logs.
Research cloud computing to help determine company direction and potential applications to migrate to a cloud-base infrastructure.

Senior system administrator example responsibilities.

Manage and optimize the design and delivery of project associate with AIX arena.
Manage all installs and setup of new servers, and server upgrades to server 2008 R2.
Implement IIS servers for both the internal and external web servers and managing security on all web servers.
Design, implement, and manage a network and domain extension in a remote location via a secure VPN link.
Manage Cisco network equipment including firewalls and switches.
Administer and manage daily backups via Symantec NetBackup.

Infrastructure architect vs senior system administrator skills

Common infrastructure architect skills

Cloud, 11%
Azure, 9%
Amazon Web Services, 7%
Linux, 7%
Cloud Computing, 5%
Switches, 5%

Common senior system administrator skills

Linux, 7%
Windows Server, 6%
Troubleshoot, 5%
System Administration, 4%
PowerShell, 4%
SAN, 4%

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Infrastructure Architect vs Senior System Administrator

Updated January 8, 2025

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