Hire the best Network Engineers

Network engineering is an umbrella term for all the tasks involved with setting up and maintaining IT infrastructure.

Here’s a quick overview of the skills you should look for in network engineering professionals:

• Network engineering
• Network design, planning, and administration
• Networking protocols such as TCP/IP
• Server technologies such as ASP.NET
• Router technologies such as Cisco

The trick to finding top network engineers is to identify your needs. Is your goal to set up your own internal network with Cisco routers? Do you require experience with DevOps services to automate your continuous integration and delivery pipelines? The cost of your project will depend largely on your scope of work and the specific skills needed to bring your project to life.

Rates can vary due to many factors, including expertise and experience, location, and market conditions.

• An experienced network engineer may command higher fees but also work faster, have more specialized areas of expertise, and deliver higher-quality work.
• A freelancer who is still in the process of building a client base may price their network engineering services more competitively.

Which one is right for you will depend on the specifics of your project.

Cost factor #1: Network project scope

Your project description will definitely help when it comes to assessing the first major cost factor: the overall scope and complexity of your network. This is going to be one of the biggest contributors to how much time your network engineer will need to get you up and running. Are you setting up a new network from scratch? Or are you upgrading some existing server hardware to address performance issues? Is your network a mix of on-site and in the cloud, or is it strictly in the cloud? Do you need specific tools to support a continuous delivery network or containerization?

All of this will impact what systems you need, what bandwidth your business requires, and how the engineer will configure the system with the appropriate technologies and hardware. Establishing scope will not only help you match your project with the caliber of talent you need, but it will also help you estimate your project’s timeline and milestones.

Tip: IT security and network engineering go hand in hand. You might consider a round of penetration testing before engaging a network engineer to design your system. This can provide visibility into what is and isn’t working, help you make more-educated decisions about the systems you should invest in, and allow for more proactive security improvements along with the redesign.

Cost factor #2: Network engineer’s experience and expertise

What you want to look for first and foremost is experience related to projects similar to yours. Gauge both the appropriate experience and any niche expertise. For instance, some network engineers are more focused on software requirements than hardware requirements, in response to the shift toward software-defined networking (SDN)—systems deployed in the cloud rather than on-site. This new cloud-based landscape requires a different skill set from that of traditional network engineers, including server-side scripting, operating systems and command-line interfaces, file system structures, languages like Python or Java, and a code repository system such as GitLab. For example, if you deploy any of the 40% of servers out there that are virtualized, you’ll want to look for someone with appropriate skills or certifications to manage that environment.

Other specialized experience might come into play as well. If you need an engineer who’s capable of working “close to the metal” with more on-site hardware components, look for electrical engineering expertise: familiarity with motherboards, interface cards, drivers, circuitry, wiring, and more. IT security-focused experience with TCP/IP connections and penetration testing is another specialty to look for, especially as breaches continue to threaten businesses’ bottom lines.

The following table breaks down some average rates of network engineers you can find on Upwork.

Typical rates charged by network engineers*

*Reflects rates charged by freelancers on Upwork in North America with more than 1,000 hours and 90% success rate.

Cost factor #3: Certifications

Like software, networks need to constantly evolve to be more scalable—and network engineers’ skill sets should evolve too. It’s a competitive market, and many opt for industry-recognized certifications to stand out and market themselves. We won’t go into every single certification here, but just note it’s important to match a certification with the qualifications you need, whether they’re IT security or data center virtualization.

Basic credentials to note include Windows, Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA), Python networking certifications, and Microsoft Network Engineer certifications. For cloud-based, virtualized server environments, keep an eye out for the Citrix Certified Associate-Networking (CCA-N) and VMWare certifications. For security-related credentials, the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) credential is one of the oldest and most respected.