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The differences between junior networking 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 junior networking engineer and a senior network engineer. Additionally, a senior network engineer has an average salary of $111,707, which is higher than the $84,480 average annual salary of a junior networking engineer.
The top three skills for a junior networking engineer include switches, troubleshoot and lan. The most important skills for a senior network engineer are switches, BGP, and OSPF.
| Junior Networking Engineer | Senior Network Engineer | |
| Yearly salary | $84,480 | $111,707 |
| Hourly rate | $40.62 | $53.71 |
| Growth rate | 5% | 5% |
| Number of jobs | 44,165 | 35,428 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 68% | Bachelor's Degree, 65% |
| Average age | 43 | 43 |
| Years of experience | 2 | 2 |
Junior networking engineers are entry-level information technology (IT) professionals who are responsible for managing the daily activities of local and wide area network systems of an IT organization. They must collaborate with senior network engineers to develop and implement network security procedures to safeguard the organization's networking systems. They are required to perform diagnostics and schedule preventive maintenance on the network system while responding to emergency work requests. Junior networking engineers must also manage network management programs and prepare network status reports for the management.
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.
Junior networking engineers and senior network engineers have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Junior Networking Engineer | Senior Network Engineer | |
| Average salary | $84,480 | $111,707 |
| Salary range | Between $62,000 And $114,000 | Between $85,000 And $145,000 |
| Highest paying City | Mountain View, CA | San Francisco, CA |
| Highest paying state | Washington | Washington |
| Best paying company | Parsons | The Citadel |
| Best paying industry | Technology | Finance |
There are a few differences between a junior networking engineer and a senior network engineer in terms of educational background:
| Junior Networking Engineer | Senior Network Engineer | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 68% | Bachelor's Degree, 65% |
| Most common major | Electrical Engineering | Electrical Engineering |
| Most common college | University of Pennsylvania | - |
Here are the differences between junior networking engineers' and senior network engineers' demographics:
| Junior Networking Engineer | Senior Network Engineer | |
| Average age | 43 | 43 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 87.3% Female, 12.7% | Male, 93.2% Female, 6.8% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 7.9% Unknown, 5.0% Hispanic or Latino, 11.6% Asian, 13.7% White, 61.6% 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% |