In this post we'll look at the roles, responsibilities and skills of the two job roles
In order to master a field, you must love the subject and feel a profound connection to it - Robert Greene
The Network Technician and Network Admin position, are two similar positions. Some of the differences in these two positions. Often depends on the organizations, in which you may hold these positions at. You could be a Network technician at a NOC, where your supporting more than one company. Or you could be a technician at a organization where you only support that organization. The same goes for the network admin position.
Roles:
The Network Technician role is usually the first line of defense in the networking department. When a issue comes up, the tech will get the call or notified in some way. During this time if the tech is not able to resolve the issue they may reach out to the next line of defense. The network admin or engineer. When the tech is not getting called, they may be responsible for monitoring the network. Another responsibility of the tech may be some hardware setup and device configurations.
The Network Administrator role is the next level up from the technician. Their responsibilities include working on network issues that was assigned from the technician. Which means the tech may have got an issue and wasn't able to resolve it so they sent it to the admin. The admin will usually have access to more tools and or devices. An example is a tech may not have access to any core devices in a network. For those who may not know the core devices are the main backbone of the network. If there down your network is down (or at least most of it). The admin will also have projects that they may be working on implementing in the network. They will also do more advanced configurations and troubleshooting on the network
Daily Responsibilities:
On a day by day basics the Network Technician may be the one that does most of the racking and stacking. Which means the admin or engineer configures the device and the technician puts the device in place. If your a technician on a small team then you could also be configuring and racking your own devices. This was me when I was in the technician role, if there was a site that needed a device configured and put in. I was able to take care of that. So the technician position is one that has many meanings. Which will vary from company to company. You will handle troubleshooting connectivity issues and maintaining the network infrastructure. as a tech or anyone in networking your goal is to catch and fix issues before they become a big problem.
The day to day for the network administrator, includes some of the same things as the network technician role. Both roles will have to do some troubleshooting and supporting users on the network. The biggest difference is going to be the projects that they have. A project is what makes a IT professional valuable in my opinion. A project is, a series of tasks and activities aimed at achieving specific goals within a defined timeline and budget. An example could be upgrading all networking devices to the same IOS. Or implementing a new technology on the network. These examples can be considered a project. As you progress you usually tend to receive more complex projects to complete.
Skills Required:
When it comes to the skills and education or both of these positions, there are many options. One option is having a degree in networking, then landing a job in IT after finishing school. Another option is getting a certification and then landing a position. This could be the network+, CCST networking for the network technician role. Then the CCNA for the network admin role. Also note that having a CCNA does not grantee a network admin position. Without experience you could very well land a network tech or lower position with the CCNA. The main goal without experience is to get in the door. Using myself for example, I graduated from community college with a CCNA. It took roughly two years close to three to land a role. I landed a computer operations role in healthcare. Having the CCNA got me the role but I still had to work my way up to a networking role. Moral of the story, a cert might not grantee the job but it will help to get you started on your journey.
Summary:
In conclusion the Network Technician and Network Admin positions are pretty similar. The subtle differences between them, boils down to the complexity of issues and the amount of responsibilities for each role. Someone in either of these positions would be on great track to become a network engineer.
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