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At some point in their career, usually after the first two or three years, network specialists are faced with a choice: Do they want a career path that leads to progressively senior management positions? Or do they choose to remain on the technical side and become a system guru?<\/span><\/p>\n There is no in between, as I found out when I tried to keep one foot in management and one foot in technical. Eventually, you must make a choice — and in some cases, your company might make that choice for you by telling you where it wants you to be.<\/span><\/p>\n In networking, the career choice is evaluating whether you want to be in management or evolve your skillset into that of a super network engineer. Here’s a breakdown of how the responsibilities of each category vary.<\/span><\/p>\n A network manager designs, implements and maintains computer networks, just as they always did as a technician. The difference? They don’t do the day-to-day work.<\/span><\/p>\n Instead, a <\/span>network manager assumes management-level tasks<\/a><\/span>, such as the following:<\/span><\/p>\nWhat Does a Network Manager Do?<\/h2>\n
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