Network Support Engineer
We are looking for a customer-facing L1 Network Support Engineer to act as the first point of contact for client users and customers for network-related incidents and service requests. Although the role is positioned as helpdesk support, the actual requirement is focused on L1 network troubleshooting, incident triage, ticket ownership, customer communication, and escalation coordination
The ideal candidate should have a basic but practical understanding of routing, switching, firewalls, VPNs, network monitoring, and cybersecurity fundamentals, along with strong English communication skills. The role requires someone who can speak clearly with customers, ask the right troubleshooting questions, document issues accurately, provide timely updates, and work closely with L2/L3 network teams for resolution.
Key Responsibilities
- Act as the first point of contact for network-related incidents, alerts, service requests, and customer queries.
- Receive, log, categorize, prioritize, and manage tickets using the client's ITSM/ticketing system.
- Perform initial troubleshooting for network connectivity, latency, packet loss, VPN, Wi-Fi, LAN/WAN, firewall access, and basic routing/switching issues.
- Monitor network devices, links, alerts, and dashboards, and respond to incidents based on defined procedures.
- Validate incident details by gathering required information from customers, users, monitoring tools, and internal teams.
- Perform basic checks using tools such as ping, traceroute, nslookup, ipconfig/ifconfig, telnet, SSH, logs, dashboards, and monitoring alerts.
- Identify whether an issue is related to routing, switching, firewall, DNS/DHCP, ISP circuit, endpoint, VPN, or access control.
- Follow standard operating procedures, runbooks, and escalation matrices for incident handling.
- Escalate unresolved or complex issues to L2/L3 network, firewall, security, carrier, or vendor teams with clear technical notes.
- Provide regular and professional updates to customers and internal stakeholders during incident lifecycle.
- Coordinate with telecom providers, ISPs, hardware vendors, and internal teams when required.
- Maintain accurate documentation of troubleshooting steps, ticket updates, resolution notes, and known errors.
- Support basic network change, maintenance, and health-check activities under supervision.
- Contribute to knowledge base articles, troubleshooting guides, and process improvements.
- Ensure SLA adherence, timely ticket updates, and high-quality customer communication.
Required Technical Skills
- Basic understanding of networking fundamentals, including TCP/IP, OSI model, DNS, DHCP, NAT, VPN, VLANs, subnetting, and IP addressing.
- Basic understanding of routing and switching, including static routing, default gateways, routing tables, VLANs, trunk/access ports, interface status, and common LAN/WAN issues.
- Familiarity with routing concepts such as OSPF and BGP at a basic troubleshooting or awareness level.
- Basic understanding of firewalls and network security, including firewall rules, ACLs, NAT, VPN tunnels, security zones, and traffic flow concepts.
- Awareness of common cybersecurity principles such as least privilege, secure access, phishing awareness, malware basics, and incident reporting.
- Ability to perform L1 troubleshooting for network outages, slow network, VPN access issues, Wi-Fi issues, firewall access issues, and circuit-related incidents.
- Experience using ticketing and monitoring tools such as ServiceNow, Jira, Zendesk, SolarWinds, PRTG, Nagios, Zabbix, Datadog, or similar tools.
- Ability to read basic network diagrams, escalation guides, SOPs, and runbooks.
- Basic knowledge of Cisco, Fortinet, Palo Alto, Juniper, Meraki, Aruba, or similar network/security technologies is preferred.
Required Communication and Customer-Facing Skills
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English.
- Ability to communicate technical issues clearly to both technical and non-technical customers.
- Strong customer service mindset with professional call, email, and chat etiquette.
- Ability to ask structured troubleshooting questions and capture accurate incident details.
- Ability to provide clear, timely, and concise updates during incidents.
- Comfortable front-ending customer conversations, bridge calls, and escalation updates.
- Strong listening skills, patience, ownership mindset, and ability to work under pressure.
- Exposure to global customers or international client support.
- Experience working in 24x7 operations or rotational shift environments.
Must-Have Profile
- 2–4 years of IT support experience.
- Good L1 understanding of routing, switching, firewalls, VPN, and cybersecurity basics.
- Strong English communication skills.
- Experience handling tickets, incidents, escalations, and customer updates.
- Ability to front-end customers professionally and coordinate with technical teams.
- Willingness to work in Manila / Metro Manila and support shift-based operations if required.
Nice to have Skills
- Working Knowledge of Cisco/Fortinet/Palo Alto/Juniper/Meraki devices.
- Working Knowledge of ServiceNow or other enterprise ITSM tools.
- Working Knowledge of network monitoring tools.
- Exposure to firewall logs, VPN troubleshooting, ISP coordination, or SD-WAN basics.
- Basic understanding of ITIL incident, request, problem, and change management.
