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Networking & Systems

Network Engineering

Network engineers build the connectivity underneath every system: campus networks, data centre fabrics, wide-area links and the routing between them. It is one of the few technology paths where a structured certification track genuinely maps to the work.

5 stages2 projectsBeginner friendly6 to 9 months, part time

Start here

Install a network simulator, build a two-router topology, and make one ping the other. Everything else on this path is that, repeated with more nodes and more rules. No prior experience needed.

01

Fundamentals

This path is unusually cumulative. Weak foundations here surface as confusion for years.

Required

Models and addressing

The layered model is the shared vocabulary of the entire field. Every troubleshooting conversation uses it.

What to learn

  • OSI and TCP/IP models
  • Ethernet and MAC addressing
  • IPv4 addressing and subnetting
  • IPv6, which is no longer optional
  • ARP and neighbour discovery

Practice

Subnet by hand until it is fast. This is genuinely worth drilling; it appears in every interview and every design.

Next: Switching.

Required

Labs and packet analysis

You cannot learn networking by reading. You learn it by building topologies and watching packets.

What to learn

  • Building lab topologies
  • Reading a packet capture
  • Following a conversation across a capture
  • Basic device configuration

Tools

  • Cisco Packet Tracer
  • GNS3 or EVE-NG
  • Wireshark

Practice

Capture a DNS lookup and a TCP handshake and annotate every packet.

Next: Switching.

02

Switching

The local network. Where most user-facing problems actually are.

Required

Layer 2

Broadcast domains and loops cause failures that look inexplicable from above.

What to learn

  • VLANs and trunking
  • Spanning tree
  • Link aggregation
  • MAC learning
  • Inter-VLAN routing

Practice

Create a switching loop in a lab deliberately, watch it saturate, then fix it with spanning tree.

Next: Routing.

03

Routing

Moving traffic between networks. The core of the discipline.

Required

Interior routing

How a network decides where to send a packet, and how it recovers when a link dies.

What to learn

  • Static routing
  • OSPF
  • Route summarisation
  • Administrative distance and metrics
  • Convergence

Practice

Build a multi-area OSPF topology, break a link, and measure how long convergence takes.

Project

beginner

A multi-site routed network

A lab with three sites, VLANs at each, OSPF between them, and redundant paths. Document the addressing plan and prove failover works.

  • GNS3 or Packet Tracer

You can design and build a routed network from an addressing plan upwards.

Next: BGP.

Required

BGP

The protocol the internet runs on. Anything involving an ISP, a data centre or a cloud interconnect involves BGP.

What to learn

  • eBGP and iBGP
  • Path selection
  • Route filtering and communities
  • Multihoming
  • Common misconfigurations and their blast radius

First understand

  • Interior routing

Next: Services and security.

04

Network services and security

The layer of services every network needs, and the controls that keep it safe.

Required

Core services

When these fail, users say 'the internet is down' and the cause is almost never the internet.

What to learn

  • DHCP
  • DNS
  • NAT and PAT
  • NTP and why clock drift breaks things
  • QoS

Next: Access control.

Required

Network access control

Segmentation is the most effective single control a network engineer can implement.

What to learn

  • Access control lists
  • Firewalls and zones
  • Segmentation design
  • 802.1X port authentication
  • VPN technologies

Practice

Segment a lab network so that guest traffic can reach the internet and nothing else.

Next: Wide-area and wireless.

05

Wide-area, wireless and automation

Where the field is heading, and what distinguishes a current engineer from a dated one.

Recommended

WAN and wireless

Most organisations have multiple sites and everyone is on Wi-Fi. Both have their own failure modes.

What to learn

  • MPLS in outline
  • SD-WAN
  • Wireless standards and channel planning
  • Site surveys
  • Roaming

Next: Automation.

Required

Network automation

Configuring devices one at a time by hand is the part of this job that is genuinely disappearing.

What to learn

  • Python for network devices
  • APIs and NETCONF/RESTCONF
  • Configuration templating
  • Automated configuration backup
  • Infrastructure as code for networks

Tools

  • Python
  • Netmiko
  • Ansible

Practice

Write a script that collects the running configuration from every device in your lab and commits it to Git.

Next: Certification, which genuinely matters here.

Recommended

Certification

Unusually for technology, networking certifications map closely to the work and are widely used as a hiring filter.

What to learn

  • CCNA as the standard entry credential
  • CCNP for specialisation
  • Vendor-neutral alternatives

Project

advanced

An automated, documented network

A lab network with multiple sites, BGP to a simulated ISP, segmentation, and full automation: configuration generated from templates, backed up to Git, and validated by an automated test.

  • GNS3
  • Python
  • Ansible
  • Git

You can rebuild an entire network from a repository, which very few network engineers can.

Where this leads

You do not have to pick one now. These are the directions this path opens up once you are working.

Cloud Networking

Apply routing and segmentation inside cloud platforms.

View roadmap

Systems & Infrastructure Engineering

Broaden into the machines at the ends of the links.

View roadmap

DevOps Engineering

Take network automation further into full infrastructure automation.

View roadmap

Continue your journey

The paths closest to this one. Skills overlap more than the job titles suggest.

Cloud Networking

Connect cloud systems to each other, to offices, and to the internet — safely.

View

Systems & Infrastructure Engineering

Understand and run the machines everything else is built on.

View

Cloud Engineering

From never opening a cloud console to running real workloads on one.

View

DevOps Engineering

Automate the path from a commit to something running in production.

View

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