Site Reliability Engineers

Previous experience via an internship or cooperative educational program in site reliability engineering is required to work in the field. For higher-level jobs, several years of experience are needed in lower-level site reliability positions.

Site reliability engineers are often generalists, who have basic knowledge about everything from coding and systems administration, to computer security and networking. Some employers may require their engineers to specialize in one or more of these areas.

Technical skill requirements for site reliability engineers vary by employer. But, in general, SREs should have programming experience in at least one of the following languages: C, C++, Java, Python, Go, Perl, or Ruby. They also need to have experience in architecting, developing, and troubleshooting large-scale systems, as well as familiarity with algorithms and data structures. They need to understand how software works and how different types of software and hardware interact. Additionally, a wide range of soft skills are needed for career success. For example SREs must have strong communication skills because they need to ask questions of other technical teams to ascertain the problem, write incident response reports and runbooks, and be able to explain the problem and solution to management (who sometimes do not have a technical background). Other important traits include good troubleshooting and problem-solving skills; a strong sense of responsibility and ownership; creativity, the ability to both follow instructions, but also think independently, when needed; curiosity; a detail oriented personality; good time management skills; and the ability to work effectively while under pressure.