Junior Network Administrator

Junior Network Administrator

The Junior Network Administrator is responsible for supporting the day-to-day operation, monitoring, maintenance, and reliability of the organization's network infrastructure. This role focuses on supporting network connectivity, switches, routers, firewalls, wireless infrastructure, and network monitoring platforms while helping ensure availability, security, and performance.

Working under the guidance of senior IT staff, this role partners with IT Operations, Security, the Service Desk, and other technical teams to maintain reliable network services and assist with troubleshooting, changes, and operational support.

This is an entry-level role designed to build foundational experience in network administration, monitoring, troubleshooting, change management, and operational best practices.

Assist in the installation, configuration, and maintenance of:

• Network switches, routers, and related infrastructure
• Firewalls, VPN connectivity, and network access components
• Wireless access points and supporting network services

Perform routine network monitoring and health checks using approved monitoring tools, including SolarWinds

Respond to network alerts, incidents, and service requests in a timely manner

Troubleshoot connectivity, VLAN, DNS, DHCP, routing, latency, and circuit-related issues

Support daily operation of enterprise network services to help ensure uptime and reliability

Assist with network firmware updates, maintenance activities, upgrades, and approved changes

Maintain network documentation, diagrams, device inventories, configurations, and operational procedures

Assist with carrier, ISP, and vendor troubleshooting and participate in maintenance windows and high-availability/failover validation under senior guidance

Follow established security, change-management, and network administration policies and procedures

Assist with firewall rule changes, network access controls, segmentation, and related configuration tasks

Support vulnerability remediation efforts involving network devices, firmware, and configuration changes

Escalate security concerns, suspicious network activity, or incidents as needed

Monitor network availability, performance, bandwidth, and capacity using SolarWinds and other approved tools

Assist in identifying and resolving performance bottlenecks, packet loss, latency, link failures, and connectivity issues

Document incidents, troubleshooting actions, and contribute to root cause analysis

Participate in on-call rotation and planned maintenance activities (if applicable)

Work closely with:

• IT Operations and Infrastructure teams
• Security and senior network engineering resources
• Help Desk / Service Desk and business technology teams

Escalate complex issues and higher-risk network changes to senior administrators or engineers

Continuously develop networking skills through hands-on experience, mentoring, training, and certification study

Required Experience:

• 0–2 years of experience in IT support, network support, systems administration, or related field
• Basic experience with:
• Troubleshooting endpoint and network connectivity issues
• TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, and common enterprise network services
• Working with tickets, incidents, technical documentation, and escalation processes

Technical Skills:

• Foundational understanding of:
• Switching and routing concepts, VLANs, subnets, and IP addressing
• TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, firewalls, VPNs, and wireless networking fundamentals
• Network availability, redundancy, and high-availability concepts
• Familiarity with:
• Network monitoring and alerting tools such as SolarWinds
• Firmware, patch, configuration, and change-management processes
• Network documentation, diagrams, device inventories, and backup/configuration concepts

Soft Skills:

• Strong problem-solving and troubleshooting ability
• Good communication skills with both technical and non-technical users
• Ability to follow processes, document work clearly, and recognize when escalation is required
• Willingness to learn and grow through hands-on network administration experience

Desired:

• Associate or Bachelor degree in IT, Computer Science, Networking, or related field
• Relevant certifications (or working toward):
• CompTIA Network+, Security+, Cisco CCNA, or similar networking certification
• Vendor-specific network, firewall, wireless, or cloud networking certifications
• Exposure to enterprise switching, routing, firewalls, wireless networks, VPNs, and cloud networking
• Familiarity with ticketing systems, IT service management, and formal change-management processes