Senior infrastructure architect vs systems administrator lead

The differences between senior infrastructure architects and systems administrator leads can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. Additionally, a senior infrastructure architect has an average salary of $119,989, which is higher than the $99,956 average annual salary of a systems administrator lead.

The top three skills for a senior infrastructure architect include amazon web services, AWS and cloud. The most important skills for a systems administrator lead are linux, project management, and windows server.

Senior infrastructure architect vs systems administrator lead overview

	Senior Infrastructure Architect	Systems Administrator Lead
Yearly salary	$119,989	$99,956
Hourly rate	$57.69	$48.06
Growth rate	5%	5%
Number of jobs	98,072	132,285
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 72%	Bachelor's Degree, 58%
Average age	44	43
Years of experience	-	2

What does a senior infrastructure architect do?

Senior infrastructure architects primarily develop and implement the information systems supporting enterprise infrastructure. These professionals are in charge of business engagement in organizations. The architects translate the requirements of businesses into technical solution designs. They offer solutions and technical ownership from design up to production. A university degree in network management or computer engineering is one of the requirements to land this job. Getting an infrastructure architecture certificate is also beneficial to be considered for the position.

What does a systems administrator lead do?

A systems administrator lead is responsible for planning, designing, and implementing procedures for critical enterprise systems. Typical duties of systems administrators include managing the day-to-day operations of a company's computer and network systems, developing new application and system implementation plans, and establishing guidelines for installing and managing the organization's computer operating systems. In addition, you are expected to ensure the security of computer systems by preventing unauthorized use, user abuse, and acts of nature.

Senior infrastructure architect vs systems administrator lead salary

Senior infrastructure architects and systems administrator leads have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Senior Infrastructure Architect	Systems Administrator Lead
Average salary	$119,989	$99,956
Salary range	Between $96,000 And $148,000	Between $77,000 And $129,000
Highest paying City	Mountain View, CA	San Francisco, CA
Highest paying state	California	California
Best paying company	ByteDance	Kabam
Best paying industry	Start-up	Telecommunication

Differences between senior infrastructure architect and systems administrator lead education

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

	Senior Infrastructure Architect	Systems Administrator Lead
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 72%	Bachelor's Degree, 58%
Most common major	Computer Science	Computer Science
Most common college	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Stanford University

Senior infrastructure architect vs systems administrator lead demographics

Here are the differences between senior infrastructure architects' and systems administrator leads' demographics:

	Senior Infrastructure Architect	Systems Administrator Lead
Average age	44	43
Gender ratio	Male, 95.2% Female, 4.8%	Male, 84.6% Female, 15.4%
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, 9.7% White, 63.4% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3%
LGBT Percentage	11%	9%

Differences between senior infrastructure architect and systems administrator lead duties and responsibilities

Senior infrastructure architect example responsibilities.

Manage and support Citrix application builds and release cycles.
Manage Cisco ASA firewalls and Microsoft ISA firewalls in production environment providing secure configurations and monitoring of the firewall logs.
Provision, configure and maintain cloud resources including server instances, load balancers, security groups, DNS management, certificates.
Plan and implement a sophisticate Linux server environment for a major MVNO.
Assist in the development of a long term vision and strategy regarding virtualization and storage.
Install new servers, all new workstations, switches, backup system, and cabling.

Systems administrator lead example responsibilities.

Manage all Citrix user connections and issues, print network, server environment and supplies.
Manage printers on the print servers and re-serve IP addresses for devices from the DHCP servers.
Manage software development group SharePoint portal.
Save company many hours of manual testing and developing by engineering Java applications to automate tedious tasks.
Manage development, manufacturing, test and delivery of custom broadband RF electronic test systems for military and aerospace customers.
Perform day-to-day management of system applications and services (NTP, DNS, LDAP, etc .).

Senior infrastructure architect vs systems administrator lead skills

Common senior infrastructure architect skills

Amazon Web Services, 13%
AWS, 12%
Cloud, 11%
Cloud Computing, 10%
Disaster Recovery, 6%
Lead Implementation, 6%

Common systems administrator lead skills

Linux, 6%
Project Management, 6%
Windows Server, 5%
System Performance, 5%
Technical Support, 5%
Database, 5%

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Senior Infrastructure Architect vs Systems Administrator Lead

Updated January 8, 2025

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