An integral part of today’s commercial digital landscape, Site Reliability Engineers are the architects of uptime who use a judicious blend of software engineering practices and IT operations to make sure organisational digital services flow smoothly. Continue Reading
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Explore Career An integral part of today’s commercial digital landscape, Site Reliability Engineers are the architects of uptime who use a judicious blend of software engineering practices and IT operations to make sure organisational digital services flow smoothly.
What are the typical responsibilities of a Site Reliability Engineer?
A Site Reliability Engineer would typically need to:
The work is office-based, although Site Reliability Engineers may need to work across different sites, depending on the size of the organisation and its network. Many organisations allow their SREs to work remotely from separate locations. You will interact and collaborate regularly with IT professionals, including software developers, system administrators, and network engineers. Consultants may need to factor in frequent travel.
The work week may usually consist of 35 to 40 hours from Monday to Friday but may include early starts, late finishes, and weekend work to meet deadlines. You will likely have on-call rotations to respond to and mitigate incidents or outages outside of regular working hours, so there is 24/7 service availability.
Research suggests that flexible hours and generous telework policies appeal more than salary to the younger generation. There has been an incremental increase in employers willing to give promising employees a chance to adjust their schedules per the job demands.
Finding a new job may be challenging. Site Reliability Engineers can boost their job search by asking their network for referrals, contacting companies directly, using job search platforms, going to job fairs, leveraging social media, and inquiring at staffing agencies. Part-time work, freelancing, and career breaks are possible options.
Site Reliability Engineers are generally employed by:
Professional associations and organisations, such as The Society For Maintenance & Reliability Professionals (SMRP), are crucial for Site Reliability Engineers interested in pursuing professional development or connecting with like-minded professionals in their industry or occupation.
Professional associations provide members with continuing education, networking opportunities, and mentorship services. Membership in one or more adds value to your resume while bolstering your credentials and qualifications.
Pre-entry work experience shows potential employers that Site Reliability Engineers have some of the required skills and an interest in the field, thus improving their chances of getting hired.
While in high school, you can check with a teacher or counsellor about relevant work-based learning opportunities to help you connect your school experiences with real-life work. Join STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) clubs and organisations so you can participate in related competitions and projects to gain hands-on experience.
Begin automating tasks and writing scripts. Learn scripting languages such as Bash or PowerShell. Join online coding communities, forums, and GitHub to collaborate on open-source projects and connect with like-minded people. Start reading about computer network concepts and Site Reliability Engineering principles to understand better what the role entails.
Research and identify reputable post-secondary training programs and certifications. The exploration will help you decide your education and training options after high school. Read about the profession and interview/shadow expert SREs to prove your commitment to course providers and prospective employers.
Mandatory or elective academic internships can help you learn about the industry and build helpful business contacts. In addition to benefiting from tasks outside the classroom that align with lessons inside it, interns may get college credits that help with early graduation, GPA, and tuition fees.
Besides, you will get the chance to hear countless stories and obtain valuable hands-on experience from industry experts. You can also build a portfolio of work to highlight in future job interviews as evidence of your expertise. Some of these internships may lead to a permanent job offer after graduation.
Internships and open-source projects in software development firms and IT companies will help you learn about Linux systems and the command line, virtualisation technologies, containerisation platforms, and cloud platforms. You will understand version control systems and basic web development while developing strong communication, problem-solving, and teamwork skills.
Build professional relationships with your professors for further guidance on internship and job opportunities. Projects will give you unparalleled opportunities to collaborate and maintain connections with fellow aspiring SREs while gaining valuable practical experience.
The experiences help determine whether the public, private, or voluntary sector is best suited to realise your ambitions. Your educational provider’s career service department can provide information about relevant internships in diverse sectors.
Site Reliability Engineers must be able to ensure the reliability and performance of large-scale, complex software systems. As such, they require knowledge of computer programming, software design, mathematics, algorithms, and data structures.
Most employers prefer applicants with a bachelor’s degree in information technology, computer science, computer information systems, software engineering, or computer engineering. You may consider completing a relevant master’s degree to increase your chances of getting an appealing job offer. If you have the necessary work experience, you can be selected for the role with an associate degree in the subjects mentioned above or just a high school diploma or GED.
Recommended high school courses include physics, computer science, and math, focusing on calculus, statistics, and discrete mathematics. English and speech classes will help you develop your research, writing, and oral communication skills. Online courses can further your knowledge of computer science and related subjects.
Remember that completing a particular academic course does not guarantee professional entry. However, professional qualifications and transferable skills may open up more than one door.
Do your homework and look into all available options for education and employment before enrolling in a specific programme. Reliable sources that help you make an educated decision include associations and employers in your field.
SREs with a solid background in data centre migrations have an edge over their peers lacking such knowledge. Accredited certification in Kubernetes Administration, DevOps Engineering, Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, Microsoft Certified Solutions, and Google Cloud Professional Service demonstrates a Site Reliability Engineer’s competence in a relevant skill set, typically through work experience, training and passing an examination.
Certification in information systems security, site reliability engineering, risk management, multiple programming languages, virtualisation technologies, and containerisation platforms from an objective and reputed organisation can help you stand out in a competitive job market and carry a significant salary premium of up to 18 per cent. In addition, successful certification programs protect public welfare by incorporating a Code of Ethics.
Some regions may offer an Engineer in Training (EIT) Certification to candidates who pass the first of two Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exams that will help them obtain a Professional Engineering (PE) License.
SREs may also need to undergo an employment background check, including but not limited to a person’s work history, education, credit history, motor vehicle reports (MVRs), criminal record, medical history, use of social media, and drug screening.
Performance, experience, and the acquisition of professional qualifications drive career progression. The exact job titles and hierarchy may vary across companies and industries. Larger organisations may have separate roles for the different aspects of site reliability engineering, while smaller companies may have one or two employees handling the entire process. However, the titles along the most common career paths available to qualified Site Reliability Engineers include the following.
Fresh graduates with good programming skills may begin as entry-level Database Administrators, Systems Engineers, Network Engineers, or Operations Engineers. If you could begin as an entry-level or Junior SRE, you will likely spend some time assisting and learning from senior colleagues before being promoted to Mid-Level and, after that, to Senior SRE.
With considerable experience and proven success in overseeing project and program management for site reliability, an SRE Manager or Team Lead can advance to a senior Principal SRE or SRE Architect position before becoming the Director of SRE or SRE Executive. Other avenues for advancement include becoming a specialist in security, software development, cloud platforms, databases, quality assurance, or web services.
The desire to accelerate career growth and personal development has an increasing number of millennials choosing to job hop and build a scattershot resume that showcases ambition, motivation, and the desire to learn a broad range of skills.
Studies prove that job hopping, earlier dismissed as “flaky” behaviour, can lead to greater job fulfilment. Employees searching for a positive culture and interesting work are willing to try out various roles and workplaces and learn valuable, transferable skills along the way.
Site Reliability Engineers with comprehensive knowledge of systems, networks, and software and a commitment to best site reliability and operational excellence practices have the best job prospects.
Continuing professional development (CPD) will help an active Site Reliability Engineer build personal skills and proficiency through work-based learning, a professional activity,
formal education, or self-directed learning.
You will likely undergo an induction period in an entry-level position before completing on-the-job training and relevant courses to learn specific skills and techniques and gain familiarity with company-preferred computer programs and software. Subsequently, there will be several opportunities to attend seminars and industry conferences to stay on top of topical issues such as new legislation and working practices. Large companies may provide additional in-house training as they introduce new systems or expand their IT facilities.
A master’s degree in software or systems engineering can build your technical skills and expertise, promoting career development. The dynamic and constantly evolving world of site reliability engineering demands staying abreast of industry trends and networking with industry experts. Complete relevant certifications at various stages of your career to streamline the process.
If possible, gain the chartered status of a relevant professional body. Requirements typically include completing a program to develop the special skills and competence required as a practising engineer and a professional review. You may need to relocate or change employers to work on larger, higher-value projects that can help open up more advancement opportunities.
In addition to offering the opportunity to continually upskill, regardless of one’s age, job, or level of knowledge, CPD also enables the periodic renewal of desirable certifications, which increase your chances of advancement and becoming an independent consultant.
The Evolution Of Site Reliability Engineering
SRE emerged as a response to the unique challenges Google faced in maintaining system reliability and performance while accommodating continuous innovation and scaling. Google engineers analysed incidents and outages to understand their root causes and prevent future occurrences. They developed practices and tools that became central to SRE.
The SRE role came into being to bridge the gap between software development and IT operations. SREs emphasised the use of automation for operations and measurement and monitoring to understand and manage system behaviour. Error budgets allowed teams to specify a permissible level of service unavailability and be answerable for exceeding it.
Robust monitoring and alerting systems facilitated proactive detection of issues and incidents, allowing for rapid response. Refining systems and processes by learning from post-incident reviews led to a culture of continuous improvement in system reliability, scalability, and automation.
The model has since been adopted by many organisations in the tech industry as they continue to adapt to changing technology landscapes and organisational needs.
Similar But Not The Same
DevOps Engineers concentrate on the automation and integration of the development and operations processes. While they share the automation aspect with DevOps Engineers, SREs focus on ensuring system reliability. Systems Engineers aim to provide the infrastructure’s reliability, performance, and security, while SREs may collaborate with them to ascertain the underlying infrastructure support service reliability.
Infrastructure Engineers design and manage the hardware and software infrastructure that SREs need for their services. The primary goal of Cloud Engineers is to ensure cloud-based services are reliable and scalable. SREs work with them to guarantee the reliability of services hosted in the cloud.
While Operations Engineers focus on maintaining IT system health and performance, SREs extend their job to proactively avoiding incidents. Reliability Engineers design and maintain systems that are resilient to failures; SREs adopt reliability engineering principles into their work to ensure service availability and resilience.
SREs rely on and collaborate with Network Engineers to provide reliable connectivity and a stable network infrastructure. Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Engineers use code to ensure consistent and reliable infrastructure deployments; SREs may use IaC tools to maintain consistent infrastructure configurations for reliability.
SREs work with Platform Engineers to ensure the reliability of the platforms for applications the latter build and maintain. Site Operations Engineers manage and optimise the operation of websites and web services, with a focus on reliability and performance. SREs extend their focus to implementing best practices in site reliability.
SREs collaborate with Release Engineers to ensure smooth and reliable software deployments without disruptions to existing services. Site Resilience Engineers aim to make systems and applications resilient to failures; as it is a key aspect of their work, SREs integrate site reliability into their practices.
Production Engineers work to maintain service reliability in production, while SREs have a broader scope covering the reliability of the entire service lifecycle. SREs collaborate with Deployment Engineers to ensure that software changes are rolled out reliably and without incidents. Automation Engineers develop scripts and tools to improve operational efficiency and reliability; SREs use automation to achieve reliability.
Current Scenario
The employment outlook of a particular profession may be impacted by diverse factors, such as the time of year, location, employment turnover, occupational growth, size of the occupation, and industry-specific trends and events that affect overall employment.
Research shows that at least 75 per cent of enterprises will use SRE practices organisation-wide by 2027, a whopping 65 per cent increase from 2022.
Every sector, including tech, healthcare, and retail, requires SREs. Businesses, especially those offering digital services, are always on the lookout for the most adept SREs to optimise their operations. Economic downturns might affect some sectors, but the need for reliable digital services remains constant, lending a high degree of job stability to this career.
Gaining expertise in the latest technologies, developing in-demand skills, building beneficial relationships with potential employers, and becoming proficient in cybersecurity and cloud computing will help SREs maintain a competitive edge in the workplace.
Why Become An SRE?
This high-profile role offers unique influence and decision-making authority. It shows immense growth potential within the tech ladder. Continual adaptation to technological changes, new programming paradigms, and evolving infrastructure trends ensures that SREs are always learning and refining their skills. SREs have rich opportunities for networking and collaboration in their highly probable interactions with industry leaders, innovators, and other influential figures as key players in the tech team.
There is high potential for remote work, particularly if your employer is a digitally-forward enterprise. SREs receive one of the highest compensation packages in the tech industry, and that number will only increase as the company expands its digital services.
Potential Pros & Cons of Freelancing vs Full-Time Employment
Freelancing SREs have more flexible work schedules and locations. They fully own the business and can select their projects and clients. However, they experience inconsistent work and cash flow, which means more responsibility, effort and risk.
On the other hand, full-time SREs have company-sponsored health benefits, insurance, and retirement plans. They have job security with a fixed, reliable source of income and guidance from their bosses. Yet, they may experience boredom due to a lack of flexibility, ownership, and variety.
When deciding between freelancing or being a full-time employee, consider the pros and cons to see what works best for you.
Despite the weight of responsibilities and the constant need to ensure uptime, the rewards and satisfaction Site Reliability Engineers gain as the organisational digital backbone, ensuring systems stay resilient and future-proof can offset the challenges.
“Normal people believe that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain’t broke, it doesn’t have enough features yet.”
Scott Adams
Site Reliability Engineers (SREs) promote a ‘blameless culture” where the focus is on learning from incidents rather than assigning blame. It encourages a culture of continuous improvement.
What do Site Reliability Engineers do?
A Site Reliability Engineer would typically need to:
Accredited
$98,220
