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Senior support technician vs technical support technician

The differences between senior support technicians and technical support technicians can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 1-2 years to become both a senior support technician and a technical support technician. Additionally, a senior support technician has an average salary of $74,459, which is higher than the $40,210 average annual salary of a technical support technician.

The top three skills for a senior support technician include customer service, technical support and troubleshoot. The most important skills for a technical support technician are customer service, technical support, and patients.

Senior support technician vs technical support technician overview

Senior Support TechnicianTechnical Support Technician
Yearly salary$74,459$40,210
Hourly rate$35.80$19.33
Growth rate10%10%
Number of jobs113,499165,677
Job satisfaction--
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 48%Bachelor's Degree, 40%
Average age4242
Years of experience22

What does a senior support technician do?

A senior support technician is an individual specializing in diagnosing and resolving information technology (IT)-related problems in an organization, including virus issues, forgotten passwords, and software updates. The job requires knowledge about the installation, configuration, and testing of computer hardware and software. Possessing excellent customer service, listening, and problem-solving skills is also vital to qualify for the position. The job's education requirements include an associate or bachelor's degree in computer science, business, information technology, or a related field.

What does a technical support technician do?

Technical support technicians are skilled professionals who resolve computer or information technology-related concerns. They may do installations, repairs, or maintenance activities of various applications or computer hardware. They are sometimes assigned specific issues or concerns to resolve so that they will not be bombarded with various issues. This means that they can now specialize in a specific family of concerns. Technical support technicians may provide on-site support, going directly to the person who needs help and doing what needs to be done or troubleshoot the problem in person. They may also be offsite and would usually be manning helpdesk hotlines. Offsite technical support technicians walk the caller through the steps they should do to fix the issues. As such, when a technical support technician is offsite, they are expected to be good communicators and will be able to provide clear instructions.

Senior support technician vs technical support technician salary

Senior support technicians and technical support technicians have different pay scales, as shown below.

Senior Support TechnicianTechnical Support Technician
Average salary$74,459$40,210
Salary rangeBetween $48,000 And $114,000Between $24,000 And $64,000
Highest paying CityDurham, NCPhiladelphia, PA
Highest paying statePennsylvaniaPennsylvania
Best paying companyPacira BioSciencesRopes & Gray
Best paying industryTechnologyFinance

Differences between senior support technician and technical support technician education

There are a few differences between a senior support technician and a technical support technician in terms of educational background:

Senior Support TechnicianTechnical Support Technician
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 48%Bachelor's Degree, 40%
Most common majorComputer ScienceBusiness
Most common collegeStanford UniversityStanford University

Senior support technician vs technical support technician demographics

Here are the differences between senior support technicians' and technical support technicians' demographics:

Senior Support TechnicianTechnical Support Technician
Average age4242
Gender ratioMale, 78.4% Female, 21.6%Male, 66.7% Female, 33.3%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 10.7% Unknown, 5.4% Hispanic or Latino, 16.3% Asian, 11.1% White, 56.1% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.4%Black or African American, 10.6% Unknown, 5.4% Hispanic or Latino, 16.9% Asian, 10.6% White, 56.1% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.4%
LGBT Percentage11%11%

Differences between senior support technician and technical support technician duties and responsibilities

Senior support technician example responsibilities.

  • Manage the virtual platforms utilize in the office using VMWare.
  • Serve as a SME and the main point of contact when agents and other leads have questions.
  • Organize and maintain Linux labs.
  • Help resolve terminal server and citrix environment issues.
  • Research Linux server logs to find errors within applications.
  • Train customers in hardware and software on both the pc and mac.
  • Show more

Technical support technician example responsibilities.

  • Manage paperwork associate with HVAC procedures.
  • Manage backups, replications and disaster recovery plans of company mission critical servers and database files to ensure redundancy.
  • Configure firewalls, setup ant-ivirus and other software to ensure proper network connectivity for windows xp, vista and mac os.
  • Assist in database software applications and implementing SQL server solutions.
  • Provide routine and advance technical support to customers for a major VOIP telecommunications company.
  • Provide daily in-person and telephonic customer support services and information to resolve and troubleshoot work-relate.
  • Show more

Senior support technician vs technical support technician skills

Common senior support technician skills
  • Customer Service, 13%
  • Technical Support, 11%
  • Troubleshoot, 9%
  • Desk Support, 4%
  • Phone Calls, 4%
  • Mac, 4%
Common technical support technician skills
  • Customer Service, 19%
  • Technical Support, 16%
  • Patients, 8%
  • Customer Support, 2%
  • Mac, 2%
  • OS, 2%

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