How to hire a customer engineer

How to hire a customer engineer, step by step

Here's a step-by-step customer engineer hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write a customer engineer job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new customer engineer
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

What does a customer engineer do?

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   First, determine the employments status of the customer engineer you need to hire. Certain customer engineer roles might require a full-time employee, whereas others can be done by part-time workers or contractors.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

   No

   You should also consider the ideal background you'd like them a customer engineer to have before you start to hire. For example, what industry or field would you like them to have experience in, what level of seniority or education does the job require, and how much it'll cost to hire a customer engineer that fits the bill.

   The following list breaks down different types of customer engineers and their corresponding salaries.

   Type of Customer Engineer	Description	Hourly rate
   Customer Engineer	Electrical engineers design, develop, test, and supervise the manufacturing of electrical equipment, such as electric motors, radar and navigation systems, communications systems, and power generation equipment. Electronics engineers design and develop electronic equipment, such as broadcast and communications systems—from portable music players to global positioning systems (GPSs).	$37-62
   Controls Designer	Controls designers both design and draft systems of hydraulic, pneumatic, and electrical controls for equipment and machines. The designers make diagrams of the logic system for timing and sequence control... Show more	$33-58
   Engineering Trainee	An engineering trainee is responsible for shadowing engineers in their duties and performing administrative tasks as needed. Engineering trainees assist the engineers in inspecting construction sites and conducting field research... Show more	$20-39

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • Customer Service
   • Technical Problems
   • Level Agreements
   • Customer Satisfaction
   • Software Support
   • Preventative Maintenance
   • Ethernet
   • Network Management
   • Java
   • Test Equipment
   • Hardware Maintenance
   • Electromechanical Equipment
   • Windows XP
   • NCR

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Lead initial product demos to Sr. management.
   • Manage the installation and support of NT scanner workstations.
   • Manage UNIX systems security and troubleshot and resolve client problems.
   • Use SMS to manage network connect devices, inventory hardware/software, software distribution/installation, and perform diagnostic checks on PC's.
   • Configure and administer DNS, NTP, NFS, TCP/IP, FTP and Netscape web servers.
   • Handle planning and shipping of POS equipment, stage new equipment, respond to client queries, and resolve technical issues.

   More customer engineer duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in the customer engineer job description is a good way to get more applicants. A customer engineer salary can be affected by several factors, such as the location of the job, the level of experience, education, certifications, and the employer's prestige.

   For example, the average salary for a customer engineer in West Virginia may be lower than in New Jersey, and an entry-level engineer typically earns less than a senior-level customer engineer. Additionally, a customer engineer with lots of experience in the field may command a higher salary as a result.

   Average customer engineer salary

   $101,212yearly

   $48.66 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level customer engineer salary

   $77,000 yearly salary

   Updated December 22, 2025

   Average customer engineer salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	California	$129,686	$62
   2	District of Columbia	$115,580	$56
   3	Texas	$114,083	$55
   4	Washington	$109,234	$53
   5	Arizona	$108,057	$52
   6	Virginia	$106,216	$51
   7	Maryland	$104,119	$50
   8	Illinois	$103,887	$50
   9	Massachusetts	$102,182	$49
   10	Florida	$101,938	$49
   11	Georgia	$100,368	$48
   12	Pennsylvania	$99,913	$48
   13	North Carolina	$99,065	$48
   14	Colorado	$98,853	$48
   15	Minnesota	$97,625	$47
   16	Ohio	$93,806	$45
   17	Indiana	$89,055	$43
   18	New York	$87,627	$42
   19	Utah	$87,322	$42
   20	Oregon	$82,451	$40

   Average customer engineer salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	Google	$140,155	$67.38	93
   2	Cloudflare	$139,870	$67.25	1
   3	Apple	$139,574	$67.10	288
   4	Square	$134,847	$64.83
   5	Twilio	$134,171	$64.51
   6	Snowflake Computing	$133,783	$64.32	1
   7	Thumbtack	$133,095	$63.99
   8	Okta	$132,746	$63.82
   9	MongoDB	$131,702	$63.32	6
   10	OpenGov	$131,557	$63.25	3
   11	AppDynamics	$130,384	$62.68
   12	CyberCoders	$129,518	$62.27
   13	Palo Alto Networks	$129,346	$62.19	4
   14	Circle Internet Financial	$129,056	$62.05
   15	Algolia	$128,235	$61.65
   16	Citi	$127,198	$61.15
   17	Über	$126,153	$60.65
   18	Databricks	$123,854	$59.55	2
   19	DIVERSANT	$122,286	$58.79
   20	SS&C Technologies	$120,315	$57.84

4. Writing a customer engineer job description

   A customer engineer job description should include a summary of the role, required skills, and a list of responsibilities. It's also good to include a salary range and the first name of the hiring manager. Below, you can find an example of a customer engineer job description:

   Customer engineer job description example

   UNRAVEL: MAKING DATA LIVE UP TO ITS PROMISE
   Applications power your business and data platforms power your applications. But the operational tasks to make data work reliably pose unique challenges that require an innovative solution. Unravel's AI-driven product helps customers achieve the full value of their data platforms through automated performance, cost, SLA, and migration intelligence.
   Unravel is seeking a Customer Success Engineer (CSE) who will be responsible for driving huge value and adoption among our customers.
   
   POSITION
   Customer Success Engineer (full-time, remote, US-based)
   About the RoleAs a Customer Success Engineer, you will work at the crucial intersection of existing customers and the rest of the company, driving customer success that leads ultimately to revenue and hence overall company success. If you are a technologist who enjoys working with customers and is driven by high-pace, high-growth environments where you can learn new skills, hone existing ones, accelerate your career, and make a tremendous impact in a space that continues to grow, then Unravel Data has the perfect role for you.
   About You3+ years experience working in big data environments and technologies (AWS EMR, Google DataProc / BigQuery, Databricks, Snowflake, Cloudera, Hortonworks, Spark, Kubernetes)3+ years hands-on UNIX/Linux/Cloud systems experience in installation, troubleshooting, product demos and delivering training sessions Align our products capabilities to Customers' success criteria Flawlessly execute technical engagements end to end ultimate achieving the “technical win“Be the “technical quarterback“ leading engagements and pulling in internal resources such as Support, Product and/or Engineering team members when necessary Identify new teams / use cases with current customers for upsell opportunities Excellent communication skills in front of customers Ability to travel to visit customers Employee Perks:Competitive Pay: Attractive compensation, a 401(k) plan and all the stock options of a high-growth startup.Unlimited PTO: Because people do their best well-rested and unstressed.Platinum Healthcare PlanFlexible Hours: The freedom to work when you work best.
   Working at Unravel:
   We challenge ourselves to rethink what's possible. We value great minds and have a passion for excellence. We're focused and driven to deliver beyond expectations. We strive for greatness but stay humble. We love what we're doing and have fun doing it.
   
   Become a part of the future of data: Work with a talented team on a revolutionary product - and enjoy every minute of it.

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   To find customer engineers for your business, try out a few different recruiting strategies:

   • Consider internal talent. One of the most important talent pools for any company is its current employees.
   • Ask for referrals. Reach out to friends, family members, and your current work to ask if they know any customer engineers they would recommend.
   • Recruit at local colleges. Attend job fairs at local colleges to recruit entry-level customer engineers with the right educational background.
   • Social media platforms. LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter have more than 3.5 billion users, and they're a great place for company branding and reaching potential job candidates.

   Post your job online:

   • Post your customer engineer job on Zippia to find and recruit customer engineer candidates who meet your exact specifications.
   • Use field-specific websites.
   • Post a job on free websites.

6. Interview candidates

   Recruiting customer engineers requires you to bring your A-game to the interview process. The first interview should introduce the company and the role to the candidate as much as they present their background experience and reasons for applying for the job. During later interviews, you can go into more detail about the technical details of the job and ask behavioral questions to gauge how they'd fit into your current company culture.

   Remember to include a few questions that allow candidates to expand on their strengths in their own words. Asking about their unique skills might reveal things you'd miss otherwise. At this point, good candidates can move on to the technical interview.

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new customer engineer

   Once you've found the customer engineer candidate you'd like to hire, it's time to write an offer letter. This should include an explicit job offer that includes the salary and the details of any other perks. Qualified candidates might be looking at multiple positions, so your offer must be competitive if you like the candidate. Also, be prepared for a negotiation stage, as candidates may way want to tweak the details of your initial offer. Once you've settled on these details, you can draft a contract to formalize your agreement.

   It's also important to follow up with applicants who do not get the job with an email letting them know that the position is filled.

   To prepare for the new customer engineer first day, you should share an onboarding schedule with them that covers their first period on the job. You should also quickly complete any necessary paperwork, such as employee action forms and onboarding documents like I-9, benefits enrollment, and federal and state tax forms. Finally, Human Resources must ensure a new employee file is created for internal record keeping.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

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How much does it cost to hire a customer engineer?