System Engineer CV: Example and Template
How to structure your CV as a System Engineer for IT infrastructure, network and servers to make a strong impression on the Swiss job market.
Currently 265 open System Engineer positions in Switzerland, across 15 cantons, 66 of them from the last 7 days. Bundesamt für Informatik und Telekommunikation BIT advertises the most.
CV example — two-page template
This template is editable straight away — or upload your existing CV and it is carried into this layout automatically.
What qualification is expected of System Engineers in Switzerland?
The typical path leads through the EFZ as an IT Specialist in Systems Engineering, followed by higher vocational education, complemented by vendor certifications.
Most job postings require an EFZ as an IT Specialist in Systems Engineering or an equivalent basic vocational qualification. For senior and lead roles, employers additionally expect higher vocational education: the Federal Diploma of Higher Education in ICT Systems and Network Engineering, the Dipl. Technician HF in Computer Science, or a Bachelor's degree (FH) in Computer Science. State the qualification exactly as it appears on your diploma, i.e. 'Dipl. Technician HF Computer Science' rather than 'Technician Diploma'.
Vendor certifications are just as important, since HR staff filter candidates by them. List CCNA or CCNP Enterprise, VCP-DCV, Microsoft certifications such as AZ-104 or MS-102, Fortinet NSE levels, and ITIL 4 Foundation, together with the year obtained. Don't leave out expired certificates - mark them with the year of issue so your career path remains traceable.
If you hold a foreign qualification, add a note on recognition by the SBFI or the corresponding level classification. For applications without a Swiss passport, the permit status (C permit, B permit, cross-border commuter G) also belongs in the header, as many companies in critical infrastructure need this information early on.
How do you present your professional experience as a System Engineer convincingly?
For each position, describe the size of the environment you managed, followed by measurable results, rather than a list of technologies.
For each position, provide context: number of users, number of servers and VMs, number of sites and data centers, whether you are on call, and whether you worked in an internal IT department or for a managed service provider. A sentence such as '180 VMs on 3 vSphere clusters for 1'800 users across 4 sites' says more than a list of twenty product names.
Phrase your achievements using figures that matter for infrastructure roles: availability as a percentage, RTO and RPO, number of critical incidents per year, SLA compliance, patch compliance, number of systems migrated, project budget in CHF, and operating costs saved. Use the Swiss notation with an apostrophe, i.e. CHF 85'000.
Clearly separate operations from projects. Recruiters want to see whether you only handle tickets or also plan migrations, write concepts and manage suppliers. So mention specific project roles (network sub-project lead, Windows Server 2019 migration, Microsoft 365 Hybrid rollout) as well as your experience with documentation, change management, and disaster recovery exercises.
How long should the CV be, and does it need a photo?
Two to a maximum of three pages is standard; a professional photo remains customary in Switzerland and is usually expected.
Keep to two pages; with over ten years of experience and many projects, three pages are acceptable. Present the last ten to twelve years in detail and summarize earlier positions in a single line. A compact technology matrix with categories such as virtualization, network, storage, security and automation is more effective than a two-page product catalogue.
A neutral portrait photo in business attire remains the norm in Switzerland and increases your response rate. In the header, add your place of residence with canton, nationality or permit, category B driving licence, and your availability and notice period - for on-call roles, distance to the data center is a real selection criterion.
Submit the CV as a PDF with a descriptive file name, for example 'CV_Brunner_SystemEngineer.pdf', and adapt the title and profile to the job posting. Pay attention to the language of the advertisement: apply in German to a German-speaking Swiss company, in French in Romandie, and state your English level, since vendor support and documentation are practically always in English.
Where System Engineer are hired in Switzerland
How the 265 open positions are spread across the cantons.
Figures as a table
| Canton | postings |
|---|---|
| Zürich | 26 |
| Bern | 23 |
| Aargau | 8 |
| St. Gallen | 6 |
| Basel-Stadt | 6 |
| Luzern | 6 |
| Solothurn | 5 |
| Graubünden | 5 |
Which languages the postings require
Of 229 postings that state a language — in brackets, those requiring professional level.
Figures as a table
| Language | postings |
|---|---|
| German | 217 (212) |
| English | 75 (53) |
| French | 19 (12) |
| Italian | 6 (6) |
Who hires System Engineer in Switzerland
Employers with the most open positions. Staffing agencies are excluded.
Figures as a table
| Employer | postings |
|---|---|
| Bundesamt für Informatik und Telekommunikation BIT | 11 |
| RUAG | 6 |
| Stadler | 5 |
| Abraxas Informatik AG | 5 |
| Aveniq | 4 |
| Kantonsspital Graubünden | 3 |
Full-time or part-time?
How the positions are advertised.
Figures as a table
| Workload | postings |
|---|---|
| Vollzeit / plein temps | 247 |
| Teilzeit / partiel | 13 |
| Temporär | 2 |
The CV in full
To read through and reuse.
Marco Brunner
System Engineer (Dipl. Technician HF Computer Science, MCSE, CCNP Enterprise)
System Engineer with 9 years of experience operating and expanding highly available infrastructures for 400 to 2'500 workstations in industry and financial services. Focus areas are VMware vSphere, Windows Server, Active Directory, Microsoft 365 Hybrid, as well as network design with Cisco and Fortinet across two data centers. I work on an ITIL basis, document thoroughly, and have led two data center migrations without unplanned downtime.
What sets me apart
Data center operations with true redundancy: Built an active-active setup across two sites with vSphere Metro Storage Cluster, synchronous replication and tested failover scenarios; reduced RTO from 8 to 1.5 hours.
Network and servers from a single source: CCNP Enterprise plus VMware VCP: I troubleshoot everything from the access port through VLAN, OSPF and BGP to the vSAN datastore, without ticket ping-pong between teams.
Automation instead of manual clicking: PowerShell and Ansible playbooks for server provisioning, patch rollout and certificate renewal; reduced manual effort by 45 hours per month.
Security and compliance in daily operations: Implementation of hardening baselines according to CIS Benchmark, a tiering model in Active Directory, and audit-ready evidence for the FINMA review of a financial services client.
Key achievements
Migrated 2 data centers without unplanned downtime. Relocation of 140 VMs, 12 physical servers and the core network infrastructure to a colocation data center in Zurich; project budget CHF 480'000, 6 maintenance windows, 0 minutes of unplanned downtime.
Increased availability from 99.4% to 99.95%. Redundant uplinks, HA configuration in the vSphere cluster and proactive monitoring with Zabbix reduced critical incidents from 23 to 4 per year.
Cut license and operating costs by CHF 85'000 per year. Consolidation from 38 to 22 physical hosts, decommissioning of 9 legacy systems, and renegotiation of the Microsoft and VMware contracts as part of the EA renewal.
Experience
Senior System Engineer / Infrastructure Team Lead — Helvetia Datatech AG, Zurich, 03/2021 - present
IT service provider with 60 employees, operating the infrastructure for 14 SME clients with a total of 2'500 workstations.
- Led 4 System Engineers and managed the 24/7 on-call service; increased first-time resolution rate in 2nd level support from 61% to 84%.
- Built an active-active setup across two data centers with vSAN and synchronous replication; reduced RTO from 8 to 1.5 hours.
- Rolled out Microsoft 365 Hybrid, including Entra ID Connect, Conditional Access and MFA, for 1'800 users within 7 months.
- Standardized server provisioning with Ansible and Terraform; reduced provisioning time for new Windows servers from 5 days to 4 hours.
System Engineer, IT Infrastructure — Wyss Präzisionstechnik AG, Biel, 08/2017 - 02/2021
Industrial company with 650 employees, 3 production sites and an OT network in manufacturing.
- Renewed the campus network with 46 Cisco switches, segmented OT and IT into 18 VLANs, and introduced 802.1X; reduced security incidents in the production network to 0.
- Replaced a Windows Server 2008 R2 farm with 24 Server 2019 systems, including AD domain migration for 650 accounts without data loss.
- Introduced Veeam Backup & Replication with a 3-2-1 concept; monthly restore tests reduced recovery time for file services from 6 to 1 hour.
- Reduced the patch backlog from an average of 47 to fewer than 5 open critical updates through WSUS automation.
System Technician, 2nd Level Support — Aare IT Services GmbH, Bern, 09/2014 - 07/2017
Managed service provider for medical practices, law firms and municipal administrations in the Bern region.
- Handled around 120 tickets per month at 2nd level with a 96% SLA compliance rate.
- Set up 35 terminal server (RDS) environments for clients with 5 to 80 workstations.
- Introduced centralized documentation in IT-Glue for 40 clients; halved onboarding time for new employees.
Education
Dipl. Technician HF, Computer Science, majoring in Systems Engineering — Höhere Fachschule für Technik, Zürich · 2017
Federal Certificate of Proficiency (EFZ), IT Specialist, Systems Engineering — Berufsfachschule Bern · 2014
Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) Enterprise · 2022 · VMware Certified Professional - Data Center Virtualization (VCP-DCV) · 2021 · Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104) · 2023 · ITIL 4 Foundation · 2019