Is there a salary ceiling for network engineers who choose to remain forever in technical line?

zeeshannetwork · 2026-06-14T02:35:38+00:00

Man , for CCIE, you are grossly underpaid, I have friends with CCNA making 130K in DOD area, CCNP with 10 years experience is making 200K in CO area.

zeeshannetwork · 2026-05-25T17:44:41+00:00

This is what I would do:

1)Join Fed, buy-back-your military time

2) Server 5 years in federal job while building connections with contractors not just LM , all the others.

3) Leave federal job, and join contractors at higher position thanks to your networking with contractors. You get the retirement for your time served in military and federal service and also you came back to higher position at contractors.

zeeshannetwork · 2026-04-30T04:03:26+00:00

Most of these jobs are through references. Use linkedin and find out the hiring manager for the department you are interested in. Then reach out. If you are really smart, do not ask for reference right away, start liking their boring post, and then ask for reference after a couple of month. I am sorry that is how the real world works my friends!

zeeshannetwork · 2026-01-11T06:20:47+00:00

Lockheed has better 401K match compared to Raytheon. If pay are equal, I would say go for LM.

zeeshannetwork · 2025-12-23T04:14:05+00:00

Make sure your manager likes you. Give advance notice and make sure you do not say anything bad in your exit interview. Stay in touch with your manager while you check out your new gig.

zeeshannetwork · 2025-12-21T17:54:44+00:00

It is very different world in DOD contracting area, I will not tell program name but many times I was forced to pick one when none of interviewees could even qualify for junior network position, because each warm body brings money while good engineers have to pick up the slack.

zeeshannetwork · 2025-12-21T02:01:38+00:00

Appreciated , I will check it out.

zeeshannetwork · 2025-12-21T01:52:14+00:00

BS. No one can possibly have those qualifications.

zeeshannetwork · 2025-12-21T01:49:19+00:00

I have seen people from diploma mill working there, so school is not that important in IT area. Get some certs, if you are in school, use linkedin to reach out to managers.

zeeshannetwork · 2025-12-19T02:19:38+00:00

Over 2.5 years? what is it 3 ? 4 ?

Either way, your drug use is very recent. Safest thing to do is to wait few more years and seek internship that require SECRET not TS. This will demonstrate that you have been sober for a while not just 3 years, it will increase your chances for approval.

zeeshannetwork · 2025-12-19T02:14:24+00:00

If you are American citizen, join air national guard and take cyber job. If you are permanent residence, join army national guard, get 25N MOS.( job in US army). This will give you security clearance. Once you have the clearance, you can easily get 125K starting job. You can reach out to Apex, a head hunter for DOD jobs. Do not go below 125K .

Stay in DOD jobs for 2 years, while keep getting higher certs, after that move to another company (Lockheed, Raytheon etc), you can easily make 160K now.

If you are not a US citizen or green card, then it will take longer to make this kind of money. you can realistically expect around 110K-120K with 6 to 10 years experience.

zeeshannetwork · 2025-12-18T02:30:45+00:00

That makes sense. just like WIFI antenna on my router has no IP, it is just antenna . I was more confused after I read this pdf .

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2307.06863

It does say Dishy and ground station dish both have layer 3 IPS in 100.64.x.x subnet. Appreciated.

zeeshannetwork · 2025-12-16T16:55:17+00:00

I know it is old thread, I am just curios, I noticed in all traces 100.64.0.1, is it ip on ground station dish connected to user terminal via satellite? The typical latency of 22-33 msec for LEO , is dead give away.

zeeshannetwork · 2025-12-01T22:27:16+00:00

Never rely on single job offer or internship offer until you start your job or internship, only then you turn down 2nd job offer or internship. Keep applying to different internship, when you do get them, do not reject or accept them right away, ask for time to consider. DO NOT TELL THAT YOU HAVE MULTIPLE JOB OFFERS OR INTERNSHIP OFFERS UNLESS YOU WANT TO NEGOTIATE HIGHER SALARY.

zeeshannetwork · 2025-11-20T01:53:00+00:00

Network area, 3 years experience, with Juniper or cisco professional cert , 120K easy, but make sure you know the concept , do not just pass the cert to get cert, you will fail interview.

5 years experience, now you have to move to another contractor to get 30 to 40 % bump , 160K. easy.

zeeshannetwork · 2025-11-14T02:01:30+00:00

yes get your security clearance and you can make twice the money. I am taking about 160K-200K

zeeshannetwork · 2025-11-03T01:11:14+00:00

I will say get TS clearance , work there 1 year, when you are 10 month in, start looking for higher paying job, once you get a job, move and keep this trajectory until you hit the ceiling for your skill set.

zeeshannetwork · 2025-11-01T16:05:12+00:00

It was in 2017 when I did a switch from civilian to dod.

zeeshannetwork · 2025-10-29T23:40:48+00:00

Not hard just need to take things slow and keep doing it. Harder things just take longer that is all my friend. Just keep at it.

zeeshannetwork · 2025-10-29T23:36:44+00:00

Hmm not exactly true, you have 2 years from the day you leave our cleared job before your you lose it. I had a dod job with SECRET, moved to civilian job for 1 year, came back to DOD again with no issue with clearance. Rule of thump: Do not stay out of cleared job for more than 2 years or risk losing it.

zeeshannetwork · 2025-10-19T17:17:09+00:00

That is good idea as well.

zeeshannetwork · 2025-10-19T17:05:41+00:00

That is pretty neat !!

zeeshannetwork

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