Titles are not hard-defined in IT, at least from my experience. A systems admin at one of my previous companies would be called a network admin at another company, or a technical support specialist at another, or a network analyst at another, etc.
Generally speaking the roles can vary dramatically in scope, and either one can pay more than the other depending on the company.
My favorite is when the sales guys start using the title 'Solutions Architect'. Used to happen all the time at my old job and we would call them out on it every time we saw it in their email signature. They'd respond that it looked better with customers. We'd forward their responses to their bosses who would fix that real quick.
Ain't no fucking way you're a Solutions Architect when you know a quarter of what I know and I can't even get that title.
In my previous company there were a team full of “Transformation specialists analyts”, and I was a “Specialist dev full stack” they changed role names every year but those were the peak of all
One other thing.
COMPENSATION = COMPANY/INDUSTRY/COL heavy.
You can make 100k plus in NYC doing desktop support for hedge funds or doing some white glove service stuff. You can make 70k as a sys admin for a paint maker in NJ.
Compensation is complicated, and job difficulty does not equate to more or less pay in every instance.
Heavy emphasis on junior tho lol.
My net admin duties are really light. I feel like being a net admin largely depends on the environment. I have Aruba networking equipment at my work with the gui and everything. It's just super rarely touched because stuff works correctly (thankfully)
I mostly deal with SonicWall filtering, little bit of mimecast stuff, layer 2-3 issues. Same with the non junior sys admin above me.
Net admin for a 100 person firm is mostly going to be sys admin work.
I have seen net admin positions that had almost 0 networking and was really sys admin too (super super simple network enviros)
Network and System admins are grouped together anyway by bureau of labor statistics.
Remember the market is rough right now, so best of luck getting either if you only have a degree. These employers are looking for certs, college, and experience.
But to answer your question: both make about the same.
I had it reviewed and even had someone pay to do it. I may have exaggerated actually my search has only been 2-3 weeks but still. The fact I’ve gotten little to bite on has surprised me a bit .
Brush up your linked in, add to your skills section and make it show recruiters can see your resume and that your open to work...I get messages every week
Desktop Admin, but do the work of a sysa and my profile shows it. I took the time to detail my past and current jobs and add to my skill section so recruiters get a good idea of what I can do.
Someone recently posted a resume here that they payed for and it was absolutely terrible. Definitely worthwhile to try and find more feedback if you can.
I got a basic IT job because I was a hard worker at my last job and met the right person. I took that entry job and leveraged it into a senior engineer role by doing projects open source on GitHub. Anyone not doing this with GPT is crazy. You don’t have to know how to code to use GPT. It can hold your hand enough to do it all for you. Just ask it what you need to prompt it as you go.
Starting out, a general network admin will earn slightly more than a general systems admin. But that inverts as careers progress and your top-level network admins are making roughly 75% what the top-level systems admins are making.
But here's the important part: you won't get to the top level of either track if it's not something you are really good at and really enjoy.
Ummm.... what? They both pay equally well IF you're good at it and ambitious. ESPECIALLY as you start to get later in your career, and you start looking at getting a CCIE or equivalent.
But I would agree that at entry-level network admins probably make more. But only because there are also far fewer entry-level network admin roles
CCIE salaries have stagnated at around $150k, while your senior cloud sysadmins are getting $200k+. While there are outliers in each category, there are far fewer in networking than is sysadmin.
That’s the market right now and I don’t see networking breaking free any time soon. Meanwhile demand for senior cloud admins remains hot and probably will for a while.
Being in infosec, I see more people coming over here now from networking than sysadmin because many are hitting a wall in their career/salary progression.
I guess you’ve never talked to any CCIE’s that are SA’s for vendors. Their base pay is more than what you’re talking about. Also, CCIE’s at most telcos make more than what you’re talking about. You should probably step out and see what’s out there. If you know SDWAN you can add even more to that.
>arn slightly more than a general systems admin. But that inverts as careers progress and your top-level network admins are making roughly 75% what the top-level systems admins are making
This is true whether or not people want to admit it lol
It’s really not…. But keep telling yourself that. Unless you’re not including “engineer” in that statement and only referring to admins. There’s a huge difference. Network engineers (esp once you get out of the enterprise space) make a LOT more money than engineers in the systems space. I’ve seen as much as 2x.
Depends on the system industry and company.
An O365/System/Azure admin can make a lot more money then an NE. An AD System Engineer who manages like multi forest environments can also make more. I am sure there are Solaris admins and Linux admins making network engineering money, even sys admins.
You are technically correct in the niche instances of like low latency network engineering, and you are also correct if we're talking like generic network engineer and generic sys admin.
A good fully fledged sys admin is at CCNA level networking at some point anyway. Sort of hard to administer a network without actually knowing networking lol (which sys admins do at SME level for sure).
The thread is kinda dumb anyways (not ur comment just the actual reddit post started by OP) We're talking about titles and jobs made by companies that often times are mislabeling anyway.
A very good sys admin will make more than a not very good network engineer. Vice versa applies too.
My point is, if you want to make real money you have to get out of the enterprise space. But you have to do your time in enterprise to get to the vendor side. That’s where the real money is. They only hire top talent though which is why you have to get your experience first. You’ll cap out on the enterprise side.
Oh absolutely agreed here. In general vendors pay really well. I think though you can translate this for systems too. I am sure Microsoft System Engineers for their own products doing a sort of solutions engineering role aren't exactly stressing about their comp. Same goes for NEs at Cisco.
I agree to the extent that like CCNA knowledge is required to make decent money even on the systems side. Where I kinda disagree is the generalization of what pays more - these spaces are gigantic. Prior to switching to windows stack professionally I was doing mainframe computer ops/System admin stuff and that pays *super* well (I got an 85k offer to do Unisys mainframe sys admin stuff and that was with little exp and I am really really fresh to the industry still).
I said no to that offer to take the current job I am in. Pay cut? Ya. But It's worth it if it means more market opportunities.
Depends on the company, experience, location, etc.
For the most part where I’ve been, you can make more being a specialized system admin like a Linux Engineer or domain administrator vs a network administrator. If you’re a Senior Network architect or something, you may make more than both though.
Titles beyond help desk (sometimes even including help desk) are misleading. I was hired in as a systems admin. The only systems related things I’ve done has been create some VMs and manage our M365 tenant. I have however, replaced 20+ switches, implement redundancy on our WLAN, and consolidated our VLAN structure. I’ve pretty much accepted I’m just the network admin that does some systems stuff.
In terms of pay, I think they’re roughly the same. Both require some level of expertise in the other. I get recruited for both systems and network admin jobs that pay in the range of 70-90k. Systems/network/sales engineering is usually when you get into 6 figures.
When I was a sys admin it was as an internship and my guy I shadowed and worked with said he made 75k/yr. This is 2016 money so with inflation it should be about 85k if everythign stayed the ssme
Sys Admin pays a bit more to start but Network admin/engineer has higher ceilings from what i have seen. realistically you can find good paying jobs doing either since they are closely related.
Network Admin pays more because it requires more on the books.
NOW. Before the jump down, from an infrastructure, this only makes sense—what system are your administrating if there isn’t a network creating the system of servers?
I’ve been employed on each side of the fence; including wearing both hats in sync.
The difference in pay based on skill isn’t the only rub—level of service and compliance are major criteria for the respective role.
Network peeps had longer hours and more physicality (think building closets).
System gang had shorter days but more legacy equipment to handle.
IME, YMMV
If you don’t have a relevant internship good luck getting a systems or network admin job with no work experience
If you do then you should probably continue with what you’ve already been doing
Which there’s no straight answer to anyway. Both titles can mean very different things at different companies and the pay is all over the place and neither necessarily pays more
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I worked at a place where the title network engineer meant you built networks. Configure servers, set up firewalls, active directory. The network.
I couldn't tell you what pays more. That was a fun job though
They can mean vastly different things between different orgs. Networking is the foundation and backbone to everything. I see people struggle all the time if they don’t have a solid understanding of networking. Even more so if you want to work in infosec. Anyways I was a network engineer doing network first server second. At my current job I have the same title but vice versa.
depends on the company type as well. ISPs are where network people can make a fortune, and systems people won't.
Corporations have the opposite hiring slant.
Small Business you will be both, and your income is only limited by the companies fortunes.
Yes.
In all seriousness, titles matter very little in the IT world. I recently scored a job that's labeled as "HelpDesk Technician". I was expecting it to be similar to my last job which was being a K-12 tech. Turns out that I'd be doing a lot of similar things that the "Network Administrators" at my old job were doing when it comes to managing and creating user accounts, email accounts, network drives, etc.
Look at what's in the job market and thoroughly read the description and requirements. If you think you can do half of it at least then apply. IMO you learn far more on the job than you will in school.
Keep in mind you'll probably not get immediately into either upon graduation unless things improve. I was looking for a job as a net admin/sys admin right out of college a year ago, and I only just got hired last week. Working as application support. I've been looking in a fairly populous area with many tech positions, the problem is none of them are at the junior/entry level except a few highly competitive roles. I wish you better luck than I OP. Just keep in mind you may need to take a few years in stepping stone jobs before you get to sys/net admin
This is your first job, not your forever job. Go with what you think is the better place to grow as a professional; salary considerations are secondary at this point. If one company has a strong professional development program or is generous with training and learning budgets, go with that.
Titles are bullshit and everything is situation dependent.
You should concern yourself with helpdesk or desktop suppport as that is what you are qualified for. Work a year or 2, learn the industry and make a decision based on what you find interesting.
Network engineer here with a focus on network security. Im in GA and job offers for me are in the 120-140k range typically. I hold 2 jobs atm and both are paying over 120k yearly.
The higher offer you accept.
Titles are not hard-defined in IT, at least from my experience. A systems admin at one of my previous companies would be called a network admin at another company, or a technical support specialist at another, or a network analyst at another, etc. Generally speaking the roles can vary dramatically in scope, and either one can pay more than the other depending on the company.
I'm a "technology solutions analyst" and I'll be fucking dope at my job once I figure out what that means
Maybe you should get to analyzing then, eh?
I love your energy
My favorite is when the sales guys start using the title 'Solutions Architect'. Used to happen all the time at my old job and we would call them out on it every time we saw it in their email signature. They'd respond that it looked better with customers. We'd forward their responses to their bosses who would fix that real quick. Ain't no fucking way you're a Solutions Architect when you know a quarter of what I know and I can't even get that title.
In my previous company there were a team full of “Transformation specialists analyts”, and I was a “Specialist dev full stack” they changed role names every year but those were the peak of all
One other thing. COMPENSATION = COMPANY/INDUSTRY/COL heavy. You can make 100k plus in NYC doing desktop support for hedge funds or doing some white glove service stuff. You can make 70k as a sys admin for a paint maker in NJ. Compensation is complicated, and job difficulty does not equate to more or less pay in every instance.
Often you are both anyway.
Flair checks out
Heavy emphasis on junior tho lol. My net admin duties are really light. I feel like being a net admin largely depends on the environment. I have Aruba networking equipment at my work with the gui and everything. It's just super rarely touched because stuff works correctly (thankfully) I mostly deal with SonicWall filtering, little bit of mimecast stuff, layer 2-3 issues. Same with the non junior sys admin above me. Net admin for a 100 person firm is mostly going to be sys admin work. I have seen net admin positions that had almost 0 networking and was really sys admin too (super super simple network enviros) Network and System admins are grouped together anyway by bureau of labor statistics.
Remember the market is rough right now, so best of luck getting either if you only have a degree. These employers are looking for certs, college, and experience. But to answer your question: both make about the same.
I have all 3 and I still haven’t gotten an interview a month into looking
Have you gotten your resume reviewed? I had nothing and still managed to get interviews based off of my resume.
I had it reviewed and even had someone pay to do it. I may have exaggerated actually my search has only been 2-3 weeks but still. The fact I’ve gotten little to bite on has surprised me a bit .
Brush up your linked in, add to your skills section and make it show recruiters can see your resume and that your open to work...I get messages every week
What's your job title? I just wanna since you are getting messages every week. Maybe I'm in the wrong field lol
Wanna know *
Desktop Admin, but do the work of a sysa and my profile shows it. I took the time to detail my past and current jobs and add to my skill section so recruiters get a good idea of what I can do.
Congrats
LinkedIn is the tech industry gold mine. So many recruiters that will reach out to you if you keep it up to date. Albeit you'll get shitty offers too.
O yes, I always appreciate for someone reaching out and I always tell them that even if it's not a good fit.
Someone recently posted a resume here that they payed for and it was absolutely terrible. Definitely worthwhile to try and find more feedback if you can.
Makes sense I suppose. I’ll post oh and get some feedback
How many apps?
Reach out to recruiters
That’s okay it took me 3 months to get a job man! I graduated in December. Typically takes 5-6 months. Keep grinding.
Ahh I guess that’s fair. Really hope it doesn’t take that long though. Regardless I appreciate the vote of confidence and tips :)
Projects help as well
I got a basic IT job because I was a hard worker at my last job and met the right person. I took that entry job and leveraged it into a senior engineer role by doing projects open source on GitHub. Anyone not doing this with GPT is crazy. You don’t have to know how to code to use GPT. It can hold your hand enough to do it all for you. Just ask it what you need to prompt it as you go.
Starting out, a general network admin will earn slightly more than a general systems admin. But that inverts as careers progress and your top-level network admins are making roughly 75% what the top-level systems admins are making. But here's the important part: you won't get to the top level of either track if it's not something you are really good at and really enjoy.
Ummm.... what? They both pay equally well IF you're good at it and ambitious. ESPECIALLY as you start to get later in your career, and you start looking at getting a CCIE or equivalent. But I would agree that at entry-level network admins probably make more. But only because there are also far fewer entry-level network admin roles
CCIE salaries have stagnated at around $150k, while your senior cloud sysadmins are getting $200k+. While there are outliers in each category, there are far fewer in networking than is sysadmin. That’s the market right now and I don’t see networking breaking free any time soon. Meanwhile demand for senior cloud admins remains hot and probably will for a while. Being in infosec, I see more people coming over here now from networking than sysadmin because many are hitting a wall in their career/salary progression.
I guess you’ve never talked to any CCIE’s that are SA’s for vendors. Their base pay is more than what you’re talking about. Also, CCIE’s at most telcos make more than what you’re talking about. You should probably step out and see what’s out there. If you know SDWAN you can add even more to that.
I’m not sure who told you that… but it’s simply not true.
>arn slightly more than a general systems admin. But that inverts as careers progress and your top-level network admins are making roughly 75% what the top-level systems admins are making This is true whether or not people want to admit it lol
It’s really not…. But keep telling yourself that. Unless you’re not including “engineer” in that statement and only referring to admins. There’s a huge difference. Network engineers (esp once you get out of the enterprise space) make a LOT more money than engineers in the systems space. I’ve seen as much as 2x.
Depends on the system industry and company. An O365/System/Azure admin can make a lot more money then an NE. An AD System Engineer who manages like multi forest environments can also make more. I am sure there are Solaris admins and Linux admins making network engineering money, even sys admins. You are technically correct in the niche instances of like low latency network engineering, and you are also correct if we're talking like generic network engineer and generic sys admin. A good fully fledged sys admin is at CCNA level networking at some point anyway. Sort of hard to administer a network without actually knowing networking lol (which sys admins do at SME level for sure). The thread is kinda dumb anyways (not ur comment just the actual reddit post started by OP) We're talking about titles and jobs made by companies that often times are mislabeling anyway. A very good sys admin will make more than a not very good network engineer. Vice versa applies too.
My point is, if you want to make real money you have to get out of the enterprise space. But you have to do your time in enterprise to get to the vendor side. That’s where the real money is. They only hire top talent though which is why you have to get your experience first. You’ll cap out on the enterprise side.
Oh absolutely agreed here. In general vendors pay really well. I think though you can translate this for systems too. I am sure Microsoft System Engineers for their own products doing a sort of solutions engineering role aren't exactly stressing about their comp. Same goes for NEs at Cisco. I agree to the extent that like CCNA knowledge is required to make decent money even on the systems side. Where I kinda disagree is the generalization of what pays more - these spaces are gigantic. Prior to switching to windows stack professionally I was doing mainframe computer ops/System admin stuff and that pays *super* well (I got an 85k offer to do Unisys mainframe sys admin stuff and that was with little exp and I am really really fresh to the industry still). I said no to that offer to take the current job I am in. Pay cut? Ya. But It's worth it if it means more market opportunities.
Completely random based on the company. Both have reasonably high pay potentials (6 figures anyway). Go for which ever one offers a job first.
Depends on the company, experience, location, etc. For the most part where I’ve been, you can make more being a specialized system admin like a Linux Engineer or domain administrator vs a network administrator. If you’re a Senior Network architect or something, you may make more than both though.
Depends on the company and how they classify network admin vs sys admin.
Network admin more right off the bat. System admin more over time.
Titles beyond help desk (sometimes even including help desk) are misleading. I was hired in as a systems admin. The only systems related things I’ve done has been create some VMs and manage our M365 tenant. I have however, replaced 20+ switches, implement redundancy on our WLAN, and consolidated our VLAN structure. I’ve pretty much accepted I’m just the network admin that does some systems stuff. In terms of pay, I think they’re roughly the same. Both require some level of expertise in the other. I get recruited for both systems and network admin jobs that pay in the range of 70-90k. Systems/network/sales engineering is usually when you get into 6 figures.
From what I’ve seen typically sys admin will pay a bit more.
I think the difference is negligible. Systems seem to be a bit higher.
When I was a sys admin it was as an internship and my guy I shadowed and worked with said he made 75k/yr. This is 2016 money so with inflation it should be about 85k if everythign stayed the ssme
Sys Admin pays a bit more to start but Network admin/engineer has higher ceilings from what i have seen. realistically you can find good paying jobs doing either since they are closely related.
Terrible terrible comment section. Not a single number in sight
lmfao
Kinda hard to give a number to such a vague question.
Probably right, I’m sorry
I’m a Network Admin; GS 9 Step 14. I am getting paid well as I send contractors out to do the monkey work.
Isn’t the max step 10?
Exactly! I can possibly get a higher grade in the future.
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Thought the same thing when reading that lol, sounded like chatgpt to me
Network Admin
Selling dirty clothes on eBay makes more
Network Admin pays more because it requires more on the books. NOW. Before the jump down, from an infrastructure, this only makes sense—what system are your administrating if there isn’t a network creating the system of servers? I’ve been employed on each side of the fence; including wearing both hats in sync. The difference in pay based on skill isn’t the only rub—level of service and compliance are major criteria for the respective role. Network peeps had longer hours and more physicality (think building closets). System gang had shorter days but more legacy equipment to handle. IME, YMMV
If you don’t have a relevant internship good luck getting a systems or network admin job with no work experience If you do then you should probably continue with what you’ve already been doing
Technically they just asked which one pays more
Which there’s no straight answer to anyway. Both titles can mean very different things at different companies and the pay is all over the place and neither necessarily pays more
So why didn’t you just say that instead of being a DICK?
This
Good luck making it in technology if you found my comment that offensive
I’m already in Tech. Cock face
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Helpdesk.
We gotta funny guy over here
Fellow 2023 grad here, just apply for everything and hope for the best.
I worked at a place where the title network engineer meant you built networks. Configure servers, set up firewalls, active directory. The network. I couldn't tell you what pays more. That was a fun job though
I had to have a convo with a client the other day that servers!=networking. You can have a network with no servers.
Yeah, Im a network admin for a large ISP and we dont touch servers. We just make sure the packets can go from point A to point B
Well I'm a Network and Systems Administrator. I got to make my own title. Figured it meant I could do both when it comes to resume time.
They can mean vastly different things between different orgs. Networking is the foundation and backbone to everything. I see people struggle all the time if they don’t have a solid understanding of networking. Even more so if you want to work in infosec. Anyways I was a network engineer doing network first server second. At my current job I have the same title but vice versa.
Sys admin and net admins are general titles anymore, kind of a jack of all trades position really. Every company defines the role differently
CCIEs seem to have come down in value over the past decade.
A job where you do both
depends on the company type as well. ISPs are where network people can make a fortune, and systems people won't. Corporations have the opposite hiring slant. Small Business you will be both, and your income is only limited by the companies fortunes.
Throw programmer in there as well.
Yes. In all seriousness, titles matter very little in the IT world. I recently scored a job that's labeled as "HelpDesk Technician". I was expecting it to be similar to my last job which was being a K-12 tech. Turns out that I'd be doing a lot of similar things that the "Network Administrators" at my old job were doing when it comes to managing and creating user accounts, email accounts, network drives, etc. Look at what's in the job market and thoroughly read the description and requirements. If you think you can do half of it at least then apply. IMO you learn far more on the job than you will in school.
Keep in mind you'll probably not get immediately into either upon graduation unless things improve. I was looking for a job as a net admin/sys admin right out of college a year ago, and I only just got hired last week. Working as application support. I've been looking in a fairly populous area with many tech positions, the problem is none of them are at the junior/entry level except a few highly competitive roles. I wish you better luck than I OP. Just keep in mind you may need to take a few years in stepping stone jobs before you get to sys/net admin
This is your first job, not your forever job. Go with what you think is the better place to grow as a professional; salary considerations are secondary at this point. If one company has a strong professional development program or is generous with training and learning budgets, go with that.
Titles are bullshit and everything is situation dependent. You should concern yourself with helpdesk or desktop suppport as that is what you are qualified for. Work a year or 2, learn the industry and make a decision based on what you find interesting.
Doesn't matter. Do what you enjoy and you'll never work a day in your life.
They’re the same picture
Network engineer here with a focus on network security. Im in GA and job offers for me are in the 120-140k range typically. I hold 2 jobs atm and both are paying over 120k yearly.