How To Become A Network/Telecom Engineer: What It Is and Career Path

What is a network/telecom engineer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

2 min read

Quoted expert

Dr. Ariful Azad Ph.D.

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a network/telecom engineer. For example, did you know that they make an average of $39.09 an hour? That's $81,302 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 5% and produce 18,200 job opportunities across the U.S.

What general advice would you give to a network/telecom engineer?

Dr. Ariful Azad Ph.D.

Director of Graduate Studies for the Dept. of Intelligent Systems Engineering, Assistant Professor of Intelligent Systems Engineering, Indiana University Bloomington

Look for a job that you would enjoy doing, even if it takes some time to find such a position. Internships are great to explore various options.

ScoreNetwork/Telecom EngineerUS Average

Salary

6.4

Avg. Salary $81,302

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

5.7

Growth rate 5%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.6

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.31%

Asian 13.85%

Black or African American 7.95%

Hispanic or Latino 11.67%

Unknown 5.00%

White 61.21%

Gender

female 8.84%

male 91.16%

Age - 42

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 42

Stress level

5.7

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

6.7

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

7.1

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a network/telecom engineer

Explore network/telecom engineer education requirements

Most common network/telecom engineer degrees

Bachelor's

59.6 %

Associate

17.3 %

Master's

13.5 %

Start to develop specific network/telecom engineer skills

Skills	Percentages
Switches	7.82%
VoIP	7.29%
Lan Wan	6.97%
SIP	5.80%
Firewall	4.88%

Complete relevant network/telecom engineer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 3-6 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New network/telecom engineers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a network/telecom engineer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real network/telecom engineer resumes.

Research network/telecom engineer duties and responsibilities

Manage multiple, simultaneous customer projects of varying complexities while minimizing network impact during change/maintenance windows.
Interpret schematics and install wire wrap interconnection for switches and fuse panels for DSX and VRU's.
Increase carrier connections; simulate VoIP traffic to verify that hardware upgrades are successful and correctly implement.
Provide highly skil voice network planning, engineering and VOIP architecture for all levels including help desk.

Prepare your network/telecom engineer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your network/telecom engineer resume.

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