How To Become A Senior Operations Engineer: What It Is and Career Path

What is a senior operations engineer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted expert

Maryam Farahani

The senior operations engineer is the person that makes sure things keep on running. From system maintenance procedures to tech support to constantly working on streamlining processes, the senior operations engineer does it all.

Most senior operations engineers have a bachelor's or master's degree showing their in-depth knowledge of their field. They also have many years of experience in engineering and specialized technical knowledge of technologies such as Linux or PowerShell. They need this extensive technical knowledge in order to pinpoint problems within a company's operations and find ways to improve workflow.

But technical knowledge alone is not enough to make a good senior operations engineer. They also need to be good with people as they lead a team of other engineers and communicate with other workers in the company. With hard work, a senior operations engineer can work their way up to the position of a project manager or chief engineer.

What general advice would you give to a senior operations engineer?

Maryam Farahani

Engineering Instructor, Bakersfield College

Thinking about the fields they want to experience or try. And to be intentional about their job search. The best advice is learning as much as they can about what company offers. Visualizing themselves in the next 5 years as a starting point. Do they want to travel a lot, or be in management positions? Do they want to be subject matter expert, or a hands-on engineer or technologist? Their goal may change as they progress in their career but having one makes a big difference in their career choices and keeping them on track.

ScoreSenior Operations EngineerUS Average

Salary

7.9

Avg. Salary $112,583

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

5.7

Growth rate 5%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.6

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.31%

Asian 12.41%

Black or African American 8.46%

Hispanic or Latino 12.16%

Unknown 5.05%

White 61.61%

Gender

female 9.32%

male 90.68%

Age - 42

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 42

Stress level

5.7

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

6.7

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

7.1

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a senior operations engineer

Explore senior operations engineer education requirements

Most common senior operations engineer degrees

Bachelor's

68.2 %

Master's

15.5 %

Associate

10.5 %

Start to develop specific senior operations engineer skills

Skills	Percentages
Python	11.57%
AWS	6.25%
Cloud	5.41%
Linux	5.04%
Docker	4.53%

Complete relevant senior operations engineer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 3-6 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New senior operations engineers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a senior operations engineer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real senior operations engineer resumes.

Research senior operations engineer duties and responsibilities

Manage git and subversion repositories.
Used AWS as to maintain model and manage the entire application.
Accomplish tasks of client SCM team and work on the migration of existing code repository from Clearcase multisite to TFS.
Lead efforts to develop RedHat Linux installation templates and implement security hardening.

Get senior operations engineer experience

Generally, it takes 1-2 years to become a senior operations engineer. The most common roles before becoming a senior operations engineer include operations engineer, engineer team lead and systems engineer.

Prepare your senior operations engineer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your senior operations engineer resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a senior operations engineer resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable senior operations engineer resume templates

Build a professional senior operations engineer resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your senior operations engineer resume.

Apply for senior operations engineer jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a senior operations engineer job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams

How do senior operations engineers rate their job?

-/5

5 stars

4 stars

3 stars

2 stars

1 star

Senior operations engineer reviews

A zippia user wrote a review on Sep 2020

Pros

I have always been a very organized person and have worked in customer service my entire life, first as a mechanical engineer and then in the fitness industry. As a build engineer/release engineer/DevOps engineer, I get to work between the people writing the code and the people using the code, which is the perfect balance for me. :-)

Cons

It's difficult to explain to my friends what I actually do. Even my wife isn't completely clear on where my responsibility begins and ends...