Short version: A strong Network & Systems Administrator resume proves three things fast — that you can keep production up (uptime, patch compliance, backup restore proof), that you run the modern stack (Cisco or Arista, VMware or Hyper-V, Windows Server and Linux, AWS or Azure), and that you ship projects on stated dates (identity migration, cloud lift, ZTNA rollout). Keep it to one page for early-career, two for senior. Below is a full example, keyword pillrow, salary band, and mistakes to avoid.
On this page
What a Network / Systems Administrator actually does
A Network & Computer Systems Administrator (BLS occupation code 15-1244) owns the infrastructure a business depends on — the switches and routers, the servers and hypervisors, the identity and directory, the backup and DR, the monitoring and change control. BLS counts roughly 380,000 people in the role. The scope varies: a growth-stage SaaS admin runs a Windows-heavy corporate IT footprint plus AWS; a hospital admin runs clinical Windows + Linux + a large VMware estate + secure isolated networks; an MSP admin toggles across 20+ client tenants a week. The shape is consistent — uptime, patching, monitoring, backup, projects, and vendor management.
On a normal week, a Network & Systems Administrator will:
- Answer the pager. Take P1 incidents through triage, containment, restoration, and post-incident review.
- Run patch cycles. WSUS/Ivanti/Intune for Windows, Satellite or plain packaging for Linux, and firmware for network gear.
- Own the backup evidence. Restore-tests, DR walk-throughs, and cold-storage verification.
- Ship the project. Cloud migration, identity consolidation, ZTNA rollout, network refresh, virtualization upgrade.
- Coordinate vendors. Cisco TAC, VMware GSS, Microsoft Premier, AWS Enterprise Support, Palo Alto.
- Document. Runbooks, diagrams, and configuration standards.
The role rewards operational muscle memory: change discipline, on-call reliability, and the willingness to write the runbook before the outage instead of after.
What hiring managers & ATS look for
Two readers screen your resume. The ATS and the corporate recruiter want literal vendor terms — Cisco, Arista, Meraki, Palo Alto, Fortinet; VMware, Hyper-V, Proxmox; Windows Server, Linux; AWS, Azure. The hiring manager, typically a Director of IT Infrastructure or a Systems Engineering Lead, wants three things: proof of uptime discipline, proof of a shipped migration or upgrade, and proof you speak the automation vocabulary (Terraform, Ansible, PowerShell).
- Vendor stack named. "Managed network devices" is invisible. "Cisco NX-OS, Arista EOS, Meraki MX/MS/MR, Palo Alto PA-Series" is a keyword match on four platforms.
- Uptime and patch metrics. The numbers a Director reads first.
- Delivered projects. One-line project references with dates, scope, and outcome — "6-site SD-WAN migration two weeks ahead of plan under $180K budget."
- Certifications. CCNA/CCNP for network, VCP for virtualization, RHCSA/RHCE for Linux, AWS/Azure administrator for cloud, Security+ for baseline.
- Automation. Ansible, Terraform, PowerShell, Python. "Wrote scripts" is invisible; named playbooks and reduced task time are hires.
Full Network & Systems Administrator resume example
Here is a complete two-page example for a senior sysadmin at a growth-stage biotech. Every bullet follows verb + system + number + outcome. Model it; substitute your numbers.
Professional Summary
Senior Network & Systems Administrator with 9 years across a growth-stage biotech and a mid-market SaaS. Owner of a mixed Cisco/Arista campus (14 sites, 4,800 endpoints), a VMware vSphere estate (280 VMs, 6 clusters), and a growing AWS footprint (11 accounts, $1.6M/yr spend). Held 99.98% edge/core uptime across 2024, cut patch cycle from 42 to 9 days, and delivered a 6-site SD-WAN migration two weeks ahead of plan under budget. CCNP Enterprise, VCP-DCV, AWS SAA, RHCSA.
Core Skills
Systems: Windows Server 2022/2019, Active Directory, GPO, Failover Clustering, DFS, ADFS, Certificate Services, RHEL 9, Ubuntu 22.04, Bash, systemd
Virtualization: VMware vSphere 8.x, ESXi, vSAN, vMotion, DRS, Hyper-V, Proxmox, Nutanix
Cloud: AWS (VPC, EC2, S3, IAM, CloudTrail, Systems Manager, Backup), Azure (Arc, AVD, Entra ID, Update Manager); FinOps discipline
Identity: Okta, Entra ID, SSO, MFA, conditional access, hybrid AD, PIM
Backup & DR: Veeam Backup & Replication, Rubrik, Azure Backup, S3-versioned cold storage; annual DR test discipline
Monitoring: Datadog, Prometheus + Grafana, PRTG, SolarWinds; PagerDuty on-call
Automation: Ansible, Terraform, PowerShell 7, Python, GitLab CI, Chef, DSC, Nexus Repo
Security: Palo Alto next-gen firewall, Zscaler ZTNA, CrowdStrike Falcon, SentinelOne, patch management (Ivanti / WSUS / Intune)
Professional Experience
- Held 99.98% edge/core network uptime in FY24 across 14 sites (three biolab campuses, four office suites, seven distribution hubs) — up from 99.72% at hire — by re-architecting HA on Arista pairs and eliminating single points of failure.
- Delivered a 6-site Meraki SD-WAN migration two weeks ahead of plan under $180K budget, retiring MPLS on all remote sites and cutting monthly WAN spend by $8,400/mo.
- Cut patch-compliance cycle from 42 to 9 days for the Windows Server estate (86 servers) and from 21 to 6 days for endpoints (4,800 devices) by moving from WSUS-only to Intune + Ivanti Patch, and by writing a PowerShell reconciliation script that alerts on missed rings.
- Owned the VMware vSphere 8.x upgrade across 6 clusters and 280 VMs with zero unplanned downtime, and stood up vSAN on 3 clusters to eliminate a legacy iSCSI SAN.
- Led Entra ID hybrid rollout: joined 4,800 endpoints to Entra Hybrid, deployed conditional access with phishing-resistant MFA on 100% of privileged accounts, and cut standing admin access by 68% via PIM.
- Ran the annual DR test: full failover of critical services to secondary AWS region completed in 3h14m, restoring 42 systems from Veeam and S3 cold; documented gaps closed 60 days later.
- Mentored two junior sysadmins through their CCNA and RHCSA; both promoted to Systems Administrator II in FY24.
- Built the Terraform-managed AWS baseline (multi-region CloudTrail, Config, GuardDuty at org-level, SCPs across 8 accounts) — adopted by every net-new account and cut posture drift by 91%.
- Migrated 210 VMs from Hyper-V to VMware vSphere 7 across a 90-day window, with 6h weekend cutover per cluster and zero user-facing downtime.
- Deployed Ansible playbooks to automate 47 previously-manual Windows Server tasks — patch groups, IIS site provisioning, certificate renewal — cutting change-window duration by 62%.
- Managed 420+ network devices across MSP client tenants; on-call rotation; average MTTR of 34 minutes for P1 network incidents.
- Led a Cisco IOS-to-NX-OS migration for a mid-size manufacturing client (12 sites, 22 switches) with zero unplanned downtime.
Certifications & Education
CCNP Enterprise (2024) · VCP-DCV (2022) · AWS Certified Solutions Architect — Associate (2023) · RHCSA (2021) · CompTIA Network+ / Security+ · ITIL 4 Foundation
B.S. Computer Information Systems, University of Massachusetts — Boston · 2016
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Build yours free →Browse templatesKey skills & ATS keywords
| Hard skills (must show) | Soft skills (must signal) |
|---|---|
| Named network vendor stack with routing protocol depth | On-call reliability and calm during P1 bridges |
| Windows Server + Linux at admin depth | Ownership of documentation and diagrams |
| VMware or Hyper-V with cluster/HA discipline | Change discipline — running to CAB, not around it |
| Cloud administrator-level fluency (AWS/Azure) | Cross-team partnership with security and platform |
| Backup / DR with tested restore evidence | Mentorship of junior admins through certifications |
| Automation — Ansible, Terraform, PowerShell in a repo | Executive-legible one-page project narrative |
A realistic pay range
$85K–$155KTypical US base for Network & Systems Administrators with 3–10 years' experience, per BLS OES and market benchmarks.
$115K–$205KTotal compensation at tech-forward employers for senior/lead titles, including bonus and equity.
Compensation varies by employer type. Federal contractors and mid-market operators anchor the middle of the range; tech-forward employers, cloud providers, and PE-backed high-growth SaaS anchor the top. Base salaries commonly start at $65,000–$85,000 for early-career admins with under three years' experience, reach $100,000–$140,000 for senior sysadmins with 5–8 years and a certification stack, and clear $150,000+ for lead / staff administrators at tech-forward employers. Cost-of-living metros (Bay Area, NYC, Boston, Seattle) sit at the top; remote-first hiring since 2021 has expanded senior admin openings into secondary metros.
Common resume mistakes
Frequently asked questions
A one- or two-page reverse-chronological resume with a summary that names the primary stack (Cisco/Arista, VMware/Hyper-V, Windows/Linux, cloud), a core-skills grid split across network, systems, cloud, security, and automation, two to four roles with quantified bullets (uptime, patch percentage, incidents contained, project dates), and a certifications block. Every experience bullet should carry a number — uptime, MTTR, patch compliance, projects delivered, cloud spend reduced.
One page for administrators with under six years' experience. Two pages for senior sysadmins with a substantial project portfolio or those bridging from IC into staff / lead roles. Federal resumes for GS-2210 series administrator roles are longer by design.
Network — Cisco IOS/NX-OS, Arista EOS, Meraki, Palo Alto, Fortinet, BGP, OSPF, VLAN, VPN, SD-WAN. Systems — Windows Server, Active Directory, Group Policy, PowerShell, Linux (RHEL, Ubuntu), Bash. Virtualization — VMware vSphere, Hyper-V, Proxmox. Cloud — AWS, Azure, GCP administrator-level. Identity — Okta, Entra ID, SSO, MFA. Backup — Veeam, Rubrik, Commvault. Monitoring — Datadog, Prometheus, Grafana, PRTG, SolarWinds. Automation — Ansible, Terraform, PowerShell DSC.
Every bullet should carry a metric a systems / infrastructure lead recognizes — uptime percentage, patch compliance, backup restore success rate, MTTR, incidents contained, migration completion percentage, cloud spend reduced, endpoint fleet size supported, VLAN and site count, and any storage capacity managed. Compare to a baseline — 'improved patch compliance from 72% to 98%' beats 'managed patch program.'
A four-to-six-line summary, not an objective. The summary should name years in infrastructure, primary vendor stack, sites/endpoints supported, standout metric (uptime, MTTR, project delivered), and one certification (CCNA/CCNP, VCP, RHCE, AWS SAA, Azure Admin).
Lead with any IT support role and translate the work into administrator-adjacent output — scripts you wrote, small migrations you owned, home-lab projects, virtualization on personal hardware, network segmentation at home. Certifications matter unusually — CCNA, Network+, Security+, AWS Cloud Practitioner, Azure AZ-900 are the entry markers. A GitHub with Ansible playbooks or Terraform modules is a strong entry-level signal.
Single-column, reverse-chronological, standard section headings, PDF unless the posting requests DOCX. Avoid two-column layouts, headshots, icons. Use exact section words the ATS expects: Summary, Skills, Experience, Certifications, Education. Mirror the posting's phrasing — 'network administrator,' 'systems administrator,' 'infrastructure engineer,' 'SRE' — as they spell it.
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