Top 12 Network Designer Skills to Put on Your Resume

In the fast-evolving field of network design, standing out to potential employers means showing a sharp mix of hard technical chops and people-savvy on your resume. Emphasizing the top 12 network designer skills signals depth, range, and readiness to build resilient, efficient networks in a crowded market.

Network Designer Skills

1. Cisco IOS
2. Juniper Junos
3. BGP (Border Gateway Protocol)
4. OSPF (Open Shortest Path First)
5. MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching)
6. IPv6
7. QoS (Quality of Service)
8. SD-WAN (Software-Defined WAN)
9. Network Security
10. Cloud Networking
11. Wi-Fi 6
12. SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol)

1. Cisco IOS

Cisco IOS (Internetwork Operating System) powers most Cisco routers and switches and delivers a broad suite of protocols, services, and controls for data, voice, and video across enterprise and service provider networks.

Why It's Important

For a Network Designer, IOS offers a consistent command set and operating model across a wide device portfolio, enabling predictable design, streamlined deployment, and scalable operations.

How to Improve Cisco IOS Skills

Leveling up IOS in real networks demands focus on security, automation, and operational hygiene.

1. Stay Current: Standardize on supported IOS/IOS XE releases with known stability and security fixes. Track recommended trains and maintain a planned upgrade cadence.

2. Harden the Control Plane: Enforce AAA, SSHv2, secure boot, role-based CLI views, control-plane policing, logging, and consistent password/Key management. Disable legacy services.

3. Template and Automate: Use golden configs, config archives, and model-driven interfaces (NETCONF/RESTCONF/YANG). Combine with Ansible or Nornir for repeatable rollouts.

4. Observe the Network: Enable NetFlow/IPFIX, ERSPAN where useful, and consider model-driven telemetry for high-scale visibility. Build alerting around baselines.

5. Validate Continuously: Run periodic audits for drift, unused ACL entries, deprecated ciphers, and orphaned interfaces. Bake checks into CI/CD for network changes.

6. Document and Test: Maintain lab parity for change validation. Keep interface standards, QoS policies, and routing designs documented and versioned.

How to Display Cisco IOS Skills on Your Resume

2. Juniper Junos

Junos is Juniper’s network operating system, built on a modular architecture with transactional commits, strong automation hooks, and robust routing, switching, and security features for complex, scalable designs.

Why It's Important

It simplifies complex configurations, encourages clean separation of concerns (routing-instances, logical systems), and supports automation from the ground up, making large-scale design more reliable.

How to Improve Juniper Junos Skills

1. Automate Thoughtfully: Use PyEZ, event policies, and commit scripts with Jinja2 templates. Validate changes using commit confirmed and rollbacks.

2. Design for Clarity: Use routing-instances, policy options, and firewall filters to keep intent explicit. Document policies and terms like code.

3. Strengthen Security: Enforce SSH, strong auth, and RBAC. Use secure syslog, SNMPv3, and CoS policies. Keep device certificates in order.

4. Monitor Deeply: Leverage J-Web or your NMS for health, thresholds, and trend lines. Traceoptions for surgical troubleshooting. Consider streaming telemetry.

5. Keep Learning: Lab with new features (EVPN/VXLAN, Segment Routing, Adaptive TACACS). Track release notes and recommended versions.

How to Display Juniper Junos Skills on Your Resume

3. BGP (Border Gateway Protocol)

BGP is the Internet’s exterior gateway protocol, exchanging reachability between autonomous systems and enabling path control, scale, and policy across organizational boundaries.

Why It's Important

It’s the backbone of interdomain routing and a primary tool for redundancy, traffic engineering, and multi-homing design.

How to Improve BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) Skills

1. Harden the Edge: Deploy RPKI origin validation, strict prefix and AS-path filters, max-prefix limits, BGP TTL security (GTSM), and session protection (MD5/AO). Prevent leaks with well-defined import/export policies.

2. Tune Convergence: Use BFD for fast failure detection. Consider PIC core/edge, add-path where appropriate, and sensible timers. Avoid flapping with damping only where it makes sense.

3. Engineer Traffic: Apply MED, local-preference, communities (including large communities), and AS-path prepending. Keep policies deterministic and documented.

4. Scale Safely: Summarize at boundaries, leverage route-reflectors, and keep iBGP full-mesh alternatives tidy. Monitor route table growth and churn.

5. Observe Continuously: Use BMP to export BGP events to collectors, watch for anomalies, and alert on unexpected prefix or path changes. Join communities like NANOG and adopt MANRS best practices.

How to Display BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) Skills on Your Resume

4. OSPF (Open Shortest Path First)

OSPF is a link-state IGP that computes shortest paths with rapid convergence and scalable area-based hierarchy. OSPFv2 for IPv4, OSPFv3 for IPv6.

Why It's Important

It provides deterministic intra-domain routing, fast failure handling, and clean summarization—key traits for large, complex networks.

How to Improve OSPF (Open Shortest Path First) Skills

1. Design with Areas: Keep a tidy backbone (Area 0). Use multiple areas to contain SPF scope. Summarize between areas; avoid gratuitous ABRs.

2. Pick Area Types Wisely: Stub, totally stubby, and NSSA reduce external LSA churn. Use where egress is predictable.

3. Mind Network Types: Set point-to-point on links that are, well, point-to-point. Cut down on DR/BDR elections where they aren’t needed.

4. Tune Carefully: Align hello/dead timers with link characteristics and vendor defaults. Use BFD for faster detection rather than overly aggressive timers.

5. Secure and Silence: Authenticate adjacencies, and mark unused neighbor-facing interfaces as passive to curb noise and risk.

How to Display OSPF (Open Shortest Path First) Skills on Your Resume

5. MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching)

MPLS forwards packets using short labels rather than long address lookups, enabling fast, predictable paths and advanced services like VPNs and traffic engineering.

Why It's Important

It lets designers shape paths, prioritize classes, and build scalable L2/L3 VPN topologies with strong resiliency.

How to Improve MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) Skills

1. Engineer Traffic: Use TE (RSVP-TE or Segment Routing with SR-MPLS) to pin paths, meet SLAs, and dodge hot spots.

2. Build for Fast Reroute: Deploy LFA/TI-LFA or FRR so failures heal in tens of milliseconds.

3. Elevate QoS: Map DSCP to EXP/TC consistently. Shape, police, and prioritize real-time classes end to end.

4. Harden VPNs: Adopt robust PE-CE filtering, route-target discipline, and encrypt where required (e.g., IPsec over untrusted cores).

5. Plan for Scale: Keep label distribution simple (LDP or SR). Summarize, prune unnecessary routes, and monitor label space and LFIB growth.

6. Monitor Relentlessly: Track RSVP/SR state, path delays, and loss. Alert on LSP churn and unexpected reroutes.

How to Display MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) Skills on Your Resume

6. IPv6

IPv6 delivers a vastly larger address space with integrated enhancements to routing, autoconfiguration, and security. It removes the typical need for IPv4-style NAT and simplifies end-to-end design.

Why It's Important

Device growth, cloud sprawl, and modern apps demand it. IPv6 enables cleaner addressing, scalable aggregation, and future-friendly architectures.

How to Improve IPv6 Skills

1. Craft a Hierarchical Plan: Allocate by region/site/role. Keep summarization in mind from day zero. Document prefix ownership.

2. Choose the Right Onboarding: SLAAC, DHCPv6, or both. Use stable-but-random IIDs for privacy. Employ DHCPv6-PD for branch prefixes.

3. Secure the Edge: Enforce RA Guard, DHCPv6 guard, uRPF, and proper ACLs. Prefer IPsec where mandated, but don’t rely on it blindly—layer defenses.

4. Run Dual-Stack Then Simplify: Start with dual-stack for compatibility. Consider IPv6-only with NAT64/DNS64 when apps allow.

5. Use the Right Protocols: OSPFv3 and BGP for routing, with consistent policy. Avoid NAT66 unless you have a hard requirement.

6. Test End to End: Verify apps, DNS, monitoring, and security tooling behave in IPv6. Bake IPv6 paths into synthetic tests.

How to Display IPv6 Skills on Your Resume

7. QoS (Quality of Service)

QoS prioritizes critical traffic and manages contention so real-time apps and business-critical flows get the treatment they need, even under load.

Why It's Important

When bandwidth is tight or bursts hit, QoS keeps voice clear, video stable, and transactions snappy.

How to Improve QoS (Quality of Service) Skills

1. Define Trust Boundaries: Classify at the edge. Don’t trust endpoints blindly. Normalize DSCP markings before they enter the core.

2. Queue Smartly: Use LLQ for strict-priority classes, WFQ/CBWFQ for fairness. Right-size buffers; don’t overdo priority queues.

3. Shape and Police: Shape where you must absorb bursts. Police where you need hard ceilings. Keep policies symmetric across paths.

4. Prevent Congestion: Enable WRED/ECN on appropriate queues to signal before buffers melt down.

5. Measure and Iterate: Track latency, jitter, and loss per class. Adjust class bandwidths as usage patterns evolve.

6. Document End-to-End: Carry markings across LAN, WAN, SD-WAN, and cloud. Consistency beats cleverness.

How to Display QoS (Quality of Service) Skills on Your Resume

8. SD-WAN (Software-Defined WAN)

SD-WAN applies policy-driven, application-aware routing across multiple underlays (MPLS, broadband, LTE/5G) with centralized control, visibility, and automation.

Why It's Important

It boosts performance, simplifies operations, and can cut access costs—all while steering apps over the best path in real time.

How to Improve SD-WAN (Software-Defined WAN) Skills

1. Design for Outcomes: Define SLAs per app (loss, latency, jitter). Use dynamic path selection, packet duplication, and FEC where it counts.

2. Secure by Default: Integrate NGFW/IPS, DNS security, and ZTNA/SASE principles. Tie identity and device posture into policy.

3. Operationalize: Use ZTP for rollouts. Standardize templates and enforce posture checks before sites go “green.”

4. Cloud Smart: Optimize access to IaaS/SaaS with local breakout, cloud on-ramps, and policy for trusted egress.

5. Resilience First: Multi-uplink everywhere sensible. Diversity in last mile and power. Test failover regularly, not just on paper.

How to Display SD-WAN (Software-Defined WAN) Skills on Your Resume

9. Network Security

Network security defends confidentiality, integrity, and availability across wired, wireless, and cloud edges with layered controls and continuous monitoring.

Why It's Important

Breaches burn trust, bleed money, and disrupt operations. Strong designs minimize blast radius and speed detection and response.

How to Improve Network Security Skills

1. Zero Trust Mindset: Verify explicitly, enforce least privilege, and assume breach. Segment aggressively with VRFs/VLANs/SDN microsegmentation.

2. Strong Access: 802.1X/NAC for endpoints, MFA for admins, RBAC everywhere. Rotate keys and credentials routinely.

3. Harden and Patch: Standard baselines, secure configs, rapid patch SLAs. Remove unused services. Log everything important.

4. Protect the Perimeter(s): NGFW/IPS, WAF where appropriate, DDoS protections, DNS filtering. Filter egress, not just ingress.

5. Observe and Respond: Centralize logs to a SIEM. Add NDR for east-west visibility. Automate workflows with SOAR where possible.

6. Train People: Regular phishing drills and role-specific guidance. Clear runbooks for incidents and recovery.

7. Test Often: Red/blue/purple exercises, vulnerability scans, and targeted pen tests. Validate backups and restoration.

How to Display Network Security Skills on Your Resume

10. Cloud Networking

Cloud networking spans VPCs/VNets, hybrid links, and policy-driven services that tie distributed users to apps and data, wherever they live.

Why It's Important

It brings elasticity and reach. With the right design, you get performance, resilience, and governance without sprawl.

How to Improve Cloud Networking Skills

1. Architect for Scale: Hub-and-spoke or transit architectures keep routes sane. Centralize inspection and egress. Use separate accounts/projects for blast-radius control.

2. Harden Connectivity: IPSec for quick wins, private circuits for steady-state throughput. Validate MTU, asymmetric routes, and failover behavior.

3. Policy as Code: Use IaC (Terraform, Pulumi) plus guardrails (OPA/Conftest). Enforce tagging, CIDR hygiene, and firewall baselines.

4. Private by Default: Prefer private endpoints and service attachments over public exposure. Minimize NAT and hairpinning.

5. Observe and Optimize: Flow logs, packet captures, and synthetic probes. Right-size load balancers, gateways, and route tables.

6. Multi-Cloud, Carefully: Standardize identity, logging, and networking patterns to avoid one-off snowflakes. Keep data gravity and egress costs in the plan.

How to Display Cloud Networking Skills on Your Resume

11. Wi-Fi 6

Wi‑Fi 6 (802.11ax) delivers higher efficiency and capacity with OFDMA, MU‑MIMO, BSS Coloring, and TWT. Wi‑Fi 6E extends this into 6 GHz for cleaner spectrum; Wi‑Fi 7 is emerging, but 6/6E remains the mainstream rollout for enterprises.

Why It's Important

Dense environments, IoT waves, and collaboration traffic need lower latency and predictable airtime—exactly what 802.11ax brings.

How to Improve Wi-Fi 6 Skills

1. Survey Before You Place: Do predictive and on-site surveys. Walls and metal lie; measurements don’t.

2. Plan Channels: Minimize co-channel interference. Use 5 GHz (and 6 GHz where allowed) for capacity; mind DFS constraints.

3. Tune for Roaming: Enable 802.11k/v/r where client support exists. Balance power levels and avoid sticky clients.

4. Enable the Features: Turn on OFDMA and MU‑MIMO thoughtfully. Use band steering and load balancing with care.

5. Mind the Wired Underlay: Check PoE budgets, uplink speeds, and switch buffers. Don’t bottleneck great RF with a weak backhaul.

6. Secure Properly: WPA3 if supported; enterprise auth with strong EAP methods. Isolate legacy devices if they drag the cell down.

7. Update Firmware: Keep APs and clients current for stability and performance fixes.

How to Display Wi-Fi 6 Skills on Your Resume

12. SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol)

SNMP provides a common way to query device state, receive asynchronous traps, and manage configurations across IP networks.

Why It's Important

It enables centralized monitoring and basic control across multivendor fleets, which is still essential even as telemetry options expand.

How to Improve SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) Skills

1. Prefer SNMPv3: Use authentication and encryption. Define views with VACM and restrict OIDs as needed.

2. Constrain Access: Limit managers by source IP with ACLs. Separate management VRFs and out-of-band where possible.

3. Poll with Purpose: Right-size polling intervals and stagger schedules. Reserve traps/informs for truly urgent events.

4. Harden Communities: If v2c lingers, keep unique, complex strings per site or device class and segment aggressively.

5. Watch the Wire: Monitor SNMP traffic for spikes and anomalies. Audit device MIB support and prune noisy OIDs.

6. Plan the Future: Augment SNMP with model-driven telemetry (gNMI, NETCONF notifications) for scale and granularity.

How to Display SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) Skills on Your Resume