Side by side
Cloud Network Engineer vs Network Automation Engineer
These two share 80% of the same working profile. Enough in common to be worth comparing, and enough apart that the choice matters.
This pairing exists because the move is a real one: cloud networking is automation-native by default.
The short answer
Not which is better — they pay similarly often enough that the question is meaningless. This is what each one asks of you more than the other does.
Where they actually differ
The same 41 dimensions the assessment scores you on, applied to the roles themselves. Bars show each role's emphasis relative to its own strongest trait — so this is about shape, not size.
A short bar means the trait is not part of what defines that role — not that it never comes up. Every job in IT involves some troubleshooting; only some are built around it.
Writing the applications and tools other people use.
Computing that lives in someone else’s data centre, built by API.
Making a machine do the repetitive part so nobody has to.
Infrastructure created and destroyed through an API.
Replacing manual work with something repeatable.
Fixing the class of problem, not the instance.
Deciding how a system should be shaped before it gets built.
What they have in common
Worth knowing for two reasons: it explains why you are torn, and it is the part that transfers if you start with one and move to the other later.
Making something new exist that did not exist yesterday.
Long uninterrupted stretches on one hard thing.
A defined thing to implement, with an end date.
What you actually do all day
Cloud Network Engineer
Solve routing problems that exist only as API calls.
- Design VPC and virtual network layouts, and the address plan that has to last
- Connect cloud environments back to offices and data centres over VPN or dedicated circuits
- Work out why one subnet can reach a service and an apparently identical one cannot
- Build transit and peering architectures across many accounts or subscriptions
- Define network security groups and cloud firewall policy
Network Automation Engineer
Configure a thousand network devices with code instead of a thousand logins.
- Write scripts that pull the running configuration from every device and tell you what drifted
- Build templates so a new site is deployed identically to the last forty
- Test network changes in a virtual lab before they touch production
- Integrate network devices with ticketing, monitoring and source control through their APIs
- Turn a repetitive change request into a self-service pipeline
Getting in, and what it pays
The honest downside of each
Often the deciding factor. Both of these are good jobs for the right person; the question is which cost you would rather live with.
Technologies
The shared column is the practical reason these two are one career move apart rather than a restart — that part you would take with you.
Feel the difference before you commit to it
Reading two columns will not settle this. Doing an hour of each probably will — both are free and run on the machine you already have.
Closer to Cloud Network Engineer · 45–70 minutes
Follow a packet →
Find out where your own traffic actually goes on its way out of the building — and what it looks like when it stops arriving.
Closer to Network Automation Engineer · 60–90 minutes
Make the computer do it →
Do a genuinely boring task by hand, then arrange never to do it by hand again.
Certifications
Last, as everywhere on this site. If both paths share an early certification, that is the one to start with — it keeps the decision open while you find out which you prefer.
Not the right pair?
Other comparisons involving one of these two.
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Cloud Network Engineer vs Cloud Security Engineer
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Cloud Network Engineer vs Network Engineer
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Network Automation Engineer vs Platform Engineer
79% shared profile
Overlap and dimension figures are computed from the same role profiles the assessment matches against — they describe how this site models the two jobs, not a survey of people doing them. Titles vary enormously between employers: read the day-to-day lists, not the names.