Jobs / DevOps, SRE, and IT operations / 15-1241.01
Telecommunications Engineering Specialists
Design or configure wired, wireless, and satellite communications systems for voice, video, and data services. Supervise installation, service, and maintenance.
- US jobs
- 179,740 (SOC 15-1241 group, "Computer Network Architects")
- Median wage
- $134,050 a year
- Job family
- DevOps, SRE, and IT operations
Can agents do the work of telecommunications engineering specialists?
We read the evidence at the level of the job family, DevOps, SRE, and IT operations:
- Task levelPartialMixed. On SREGym, the best agent fixes 72.2% of injected faults end to end. On ITBench-AA, no model names the root cause of more than half of Kubernetes incidents (best 47%). Infrastructure as code has only generation tests with 2024-era results (IaC-Eval, 36.7%). We found no public benchmark with recent results that tests agents making Terraform changes to live infrastructure.
- Project levelUnexploredNo benchmark in our collection tests operations work at project scale, such as a multi-day migration, a platform upgrade, or an on-call rotation.
Benchmarks for the job family
These cover work in devops, sre, and it operations, not always this occupation's tasks.
- 36.7%GPT-4 with retrieval-augmented generation · 2024Emerging
- 47%Claude Opus 4.7 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort) · 27 May 2026Emerging
- OSWorld-Verifiedby HKU, Salesforce AI Research, Carnegie Mellon University and University of Waterloo90.2%Intelligence-Indeed Agent · 25 Jul 2026Saturated
- 84.7%NexAU-AHE + GPT-5.5 · 23 Apr 2026Retired
Typical tasks
From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.
- Document technical specifications and operating standards for telecommunications equipment.
- Provide user support by diagnosing network and device problems and implementing technical or procedural solutions.
- Implement system renovation projects in collaboration with technical staff, engineering consultants, installers, and vendors.
- Keep abreast of changes in industry practices and emerging telecommunications technology by reviewing current literature, talking with colleagues, participating in educational programs, attending meetings or workshops, or participating in professional organizations or conferences.
- Use computer-aided design (CAD) software to prepare or evaluate network diagrams, floor plans, or site configurations for existing facilities, renovations, or new systems.
- Develop, maintain, or implement telecommunications disaster recovery plans to ensure business continuity.
- Estimate costs for system or component implementation and operation.
- Install, or coordinate installation of, new or modified hardware, software, or programming modules of telecommunications systems.
- Review and evaluate requests from engineers, managers, and technicians for system modifications.
- Implement or perform preventive maintenance, backup, or recovery procedures.
- Inspect sites to determine physical configuration, such as device locations and conduit pathways.
- Communicate with telecommunications vendors to obtain pricing and technical specifications for available hardware, software, or services.
Other job titles for this occupation (26)
Communications Engineer · Communications Infrastructure Engineer · Communications Systems Technician (Communications Systems Tech) · Engineer · Infrastructure Engineer · Network Engineer · Signal Operations Support Specialist (Signal Ops Support Specialist) · Telecommunication Design Engineer (Telecom Design Engineer) · Telecommunications Consultant (Telecom Consultant) · Telecommunications Engineer (Telecom Engineer) · Communications Analyst · Communications Network Engineer · Communications Systems Engineer · Electrical Design Engineer · Multimedia Telecommunications Systems Integrator · Telecommunication Engineer (Telecom Engineer) · Telecommunications Administrator (Telecommunications Admin) · Telecommunications Analyst (Telecom Analyst) · Telecommunications Management Specialist (Telecom Management Specialist) · Telecommunications Network Engineer · Telecommunications Network Technician (Telecom Network Tech) · Telecommunications Operator (Telecom Operator) · Telecommunications Specialist (Telecom Specialist) · Telecommunications Systems Engineer · Unified Communications Engineer · VoIP Network Engineer (Voice over Internet Protocol Network Engineer)