How to hire a reliability engineer

How to hire a reliability engineer, step by step

Here's a step-by-step reliability 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 reliability engineer job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new reliability engineer
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

What does a reliability engineer do?

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   The reliability engineer hiring process starts by determining what type of worker you actually need. Certain roles might require a full-time employee, whereas part-time workers or contractors can do others.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

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

   Yes

   No

   A reliability engineer's background is also an important factor in determining whether they'll be a good fit for the position. For example, reliability engineers from different industries or fields will have radically different experiences and will bring different viewpoints to the role. You also need to consider the candidate's previous level of experience to make sure they'll be comfortable with the job's level of seniority.

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

   Type of Reliability Engineer	Description	Hourly rate
   Reliability Engineer	Industrial engineers find ways to eliminate wastefulness in production processes. They devise efficient systems that integrate workers, machines, materials, information, and energy to make a product or provide a service.	$36-69
   Manufacturing Engineering Internship	A manufacturing engineering intern is responsible for assisting the manufacturing engineers on the plant's daily operations, analyzing the manufacturing process and procedures, and recommending strategic solutions to maximize productivity and minimize costs. Manufacturing engineering interns shadow the production staff, inspect the tools and equipment of the manufacturing, analyze the quality control documentation, and perform related administrative tasks to familiarize themselves with the plant structure... Show more	$19-32
   Process Engineer Internship	A process engineering intern performs various tasks for an organization. These include collaborating with the technical team on cost savings, process efficiency improvements, and technology advancement, attending meetings with leadership teams, and participating in customer trials... Show more	$14-24

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • Java
   • Troubleshoot
   • Ruby
   • Jenkins
   • Azure
   • Debugging
   • Continuous Improvement
   • Failure Analysis
   • Corrective Action
   • FMEA
   • Maintainability
   • Predictive Maintenance
   • Prototyping
   • Data Analysis

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Lead a team of over 20 engineers responsible for implementing NASA human-rating requirements to achieve human-rating safety certification.
   • Manage GMP compliance, FDA audits, and the writing of [] procedures.
   • Achieve completion of the resistors and capacitor sections of the AVL.
   • Lead the implementation of utilizing SPC data for software and test set improvement initiatives.
   • Delegate tasks to appropriate CE specialist and manage``burn rate"to prevent cost overrun.
   • Design, build, and manage the entire QMS system from the ground up including re-writing all existing technical documentation.

   More reliability engineer duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in your reliability engineer job description is a great way to entice the best and brightest candidates. A reliability engineer salary can vary based on several factors:

   • Location. For example, reliability engineers' average salary in indiana is 42% less than in washington.
   • Seniority. Entry-level reliability engineers earn 47% less than senior-level reliability engineers.
   • Certifications. A reliability engineer with a few certifications under their belt will likely demand a higher salary.
   • Company. Working for a prestigious company or an exciting start-up can make a huge difference in a reliability engineer's salary.

   Average reliability engineer salary

   $105,551yearly

   $50.75 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level reliability engineer salary

   $76,000 yearly salary

   Updated December 18, 2025

   Average reliability engineer salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	California	$134,769	$65
   2	Washington	$126,756	$61
   3	New York	$106,867	$51
   4	New Jersey	$102,987	$50
   5	Massachusetts	$101,971	$49
   6	Arizona	$98,173	$47
   7	Texas	$97,828	$47
   8	Oregon	$97,158	$47
   9	District of Columbia	$96,743	$47
   10	Louisiana	$95,499	$46
   11	Colorado	$95,112	$46
   12	Utah	$94,868	$46
   13	Virginia	$93,652	$45
   14	Connecticut	$92,220	$44
   15	Illinois	$90,935	$44
   16	Pennsylvania	$90,748	$44
   17	Minnesota	$89,466	$43
   18	Oklahoma	$89,358	$43
   19	North Carolina	$88,331	$42
   20	Ohio	$88,133	$42

   Average reliability engineer salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	The Citadel	$170,822	$82.13
   2	ByteDance	$168,040	$80.79	1
   3	Meta	$165,157	$79.40	288
   4	Airbnb	$164,775	$79.22
   5	Dotdash	$164,602	$79.14
   6	TikTok	$162,058	$77.91	52
   7	Mailchimp	$159,650	$76.75
   8	Match Group	$156,721	$75.35
   9	Coinbase	$156,544	$75.26	21
   10	Netflix	$156,457	$75.22
   11	Credit Karma	$155,565	$74.79
   12	Yelp	$154,968	$74.50
   13	Flexport	$153,372	$73.74
   14	Apple	$149,606	$71.93	131
   15	Waymo	$149,266	$71.76	1
   16	Atlassian	$148,468	$71.38	1
   17	Twitter	$148,433	$71.36	1
   18	Google	$146,772	$70.56	24
   19	Flipboard	$146,582	$70.47
   20	Course Hero	$145,869	$70.13

4. Writing a reliability engineer job description

   A reliability 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 reliability engineer job description:

   Reliability engineer job description example

   Minimum qualifications:
   
   * Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, a related technical field involving software or systems engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
   * Experience programming in one or more of the following languages: C, C++, Java, Python, or Go.
   * Experience with algorithms and data structures.
   
   Preferred qualifications:
   
   * Expertise in designing, analyzing, and troubleshooting large-scale distributed systems.
   * Ability to debug, optimize code, and automate routine tasks.
   * Systematic problem-solving approach, coupled with effective communication skills and a sense of drive.
   * Understanding of Unix/Linux operating systems.
   
   About the job
   
   Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) combines software and systems engineering to build and run large-scale, massively distributed, fault-tolerant systems. SRE ensures that Google's services-both our internally critical and our externally-visible systems-have reliability, uptime appropriate to users' needs and a fast rate of improvement. Additionally SRE's will keep an ever-watchful eye on our systems capacity and performance. Much of our software development focuses on optimizing existing systems, building infrastructure and eliminating work through automation.
   
   On the SRE team, you'll have the opportunity to manage the complex challenges of scale which are unique to Google, while using your expertise in coding, algorithms, complexity analysis and large-scale system design.
   
   SRE's culture of diversity, intellectual curiosity, problem solving and openness is key to its success. Our organization brings together people with a wide variety of backgrounds, experiences and perspectives. We encourage them to collaborate, think big and take risks in a blame-free environment. We promote self-direction to work on meaningful projects, while we also strive to create an environment that provides the support and mentorship needed to learn and grow.
   
   To learn more: check out our books on Site Reliability Engineering or read a career profile about why a Software Engineer chose to join SRE.
   
   Behind everything our users see online is the architecture built by the Technical Infrastructure team to keep it running. From developing and maintaining our data centers to building the next generation of Google platforms, we make Google's product portfolio possible. We're proud to be our engineers' engineers and love voiding warranties by taking things apart so we can rebuild them. We keep our networks up and running, ensuring our users have the best and fastest experience possible.
   
   Responsibilities
   
   * Engage in and improve the whole lifecycle of services-from inception and design, through deployment, operation, and refinement.
   * Support services before they go live through activities such as system design consulting, developing software platforms and frameworks, capacity planning, and launch reviews.
   * Maintain services once they are live by measuring and monitoring availability, latency, and overall system health.
   * Scale systems sustainably through mechanisms like automation, and evolve systems by pushing for changes that improve reliability and velocity.
   * Practice sustainable incident response and blameless postmortems.

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   To find the right reliability engineer for your business, consider trying out a few different recruiting strategies:

   • Consider internal talent. One of the most important sources of talent for any company is its existing workforce.
   • Ask for referrals. Reach out to friends, family members, and current employees and ask if they know or have worked with reliability engineers they would recommend.
   • Recruit at local colleges. Attend job fairs at local colleges to recruit reliability engineers who meet your education requirements.
   • Social media platforms. LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter now have more than 3.5 billion users, and you can use social media to reach potential job candidates.

   Post your job online:

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

6. Interview candidates

   Recruiting reliability 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.

   It's also good to ask about candidates' unique skills and talents. You can move on to the technical interview if a candidate is good enough for the next step.

   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 reliability engineer

   Once you have selected a candidate for the reliability engineer position, it is time to create an offer letter. In addition to salary, the offer letter should include details about benefits and perks that are available to the employee. Ensuring your offer is competitive is vital, as qualified candidates may be considering other job opportunities. The candidate may wish to negotiate the terms of the offer, and it is important to be open to discussion and reach a mutually beneficial agreement. After the offer has been accepted, it is a good idea to formalize the agreement with a contract.

   It's also good etiquette to follow up with applicants who don't get the job by sending them an email letting them know that the position has been filled.

   To prepare for the new reliability 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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