Minimum qualifications:
+ Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
+ 10 years of experience in system design leadership and/or system hardware leadership.
+ Experience with networking technologies (i.e. Ethernet, Switching, SDN, Networking protocols, data center scale networking architecture, etc.) and design and deployment.
Preferred qualifications:
+ PhD in Computer Science or Electrical Engineering or a related field.
+ 10 years of experience in architecture, designing, developing, and deploying data center networks.
+ Experience in solving system issues and technical innovation and leading high performance teams to breakthrough results.
+ Understanding of Ethernet switching, switching ASICs from multiple vendors, and Network Interface Cards (NICs).
+ Ability to work and lead cross-functional project teams with effective communication skills.
Our computational challenges are so big, complex and unique we can't just purchase off-the-shelf hardware, we've got to make it ourselves. Your team designs and builds the hardware, software and networking technologies that power all of Google's services. As a Hardware Engineer, you design and build the systems that are the heart of the world's largest and most powerful computing infrastructure. You develop from the lowest levels of circuit design to large system design and see those systems all the way through to high volume manufacturing. Your work has the potential to shape the machinery that goes into our cutting-edge data centers affecting millions of Google users.
As a Staff Engineer on the Platforms Systems Development team, you will have the opportunity to shape the future of Google networking through innovation and introduction of new technologies in our hardware computing platforms. You will be well positioned to strengthen our engineering collaborations with Google's networking teams for Google's continued growth.
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.
+ Lead the design, implementation, and delivery of Google's networking infrastructure for both internal and external Google scale networks.
+ Define the next generation of Google's networking hardware, including switches, NIC, and optical network.
+ Be responsible for the high-level definition and design of our Data Center network.
+ Collaborate with Google's networking teams in multiple groups including Hardware, Software, architecture and Google's Software Defined Networking (SDN) team.
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How to hire a senior staff systems engineer
Senior staff systems engineer hiring summary. Here are some key points about hiring senior staff systems engineers in the United States:
- HR departments typically spend 15% of their expenses on recruitment.
- It usually takes about 12 weeks for a new employee to reach full productivity levels.
- It typically takes 36-42 days to fill a job opening.
- The median cost to hire a senior staff systems engineer is $1,633.
- Small businesses spend an average of $1,105 per senior staff systems engineer on training each year, while large companies spend $658.
- There are currently 10,062 senior staff systems engineers in the US and 237,501 job openings.
- San Jose, CA, has the highest demand for senior staff systems engineers, with 13 job openings.
- San Diego, CA has the highest concentration of senior staff systems engineers.
How to hire a senior staff systems engineer, step by step
To hire a senior staff systems engineer, consider the skills and experience you are looking for in a candidate, allocate a budget for the position, and post and promote the job opening to reach potential candidates. Follow these steps to hire a senior staff systems engineer:
Here's a step-by-step senior staff systems 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 senior staff systems engineer job description
- Step 5: Post your job
- Step 6: Interview candidates
- Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new senior staff systems engineer
- Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist
Post a senior staff systems engineer job for free, promote it for a fee
Identify your hiring needs
Before you post your senior staff systems engineer job, you should take the time to determine what type of worker your business needs. While certain jobs definitely require a full-time employee, it's sometimes better to find a senior staff systems engineer for hire on a part-time basis or as a contractor.
Determine employee vs contractor statusIs the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?Hiring the perfect senior staff systems engineer also involves considering the ideal background you'd like them to have. Depending on what industry or field they have experience in, they'll bring different skills to the job. It's also important to consider what levels of seniority and education the job requires and what kind of salary such a candidate would likely demand.
This list presents senior staff systems engineer salaries for various positions.
Type of Senior Staff Systems Engineer Description Hourly rate Senior Staff Systems Engineer Software developers are the creative minds behind computer programs. Some develop the applications that allow people to do specific tasks on a computer or another device... Show more $51-87 Engineer Engineers are highly trained professionals who determine the feasibility of various projects, usually related to the construction industry. They are considered experts in mathematics and science, two disciplines that they need to use in designing and coming up with plans for projects... Show more $31-62 Firmware Engineer The job of firmware engineers focuses on the hardware from which the software runs. They play an important role in supporting the life cycle of products from its development to implementation... Show more $35-62 Create an ideal candidate profile
Common skills:- Java
- Systems Engineering
- C++
- MATLAB
- RF
- Windows
- SAN
- System Design
- DOD
- System Architecture
- Product Development
- Strong Analytical
- Linux
- Project Management
Responsibilities:- Develop and integrate software that drives flight control system hardware and achieves product requirements for an international avionics customer base.
- Used Chicago, GPO, and DoD style manuals.
- Design electrical heater control with improve immunity to RF.
- Organize and perform the RF spectrum interference analysis with mitigation solutions.
- Author EMC white papers on symmetrix-base solutions and implementation best practices, to directly support sales/service delivery.
- Perform communications interference analyses involving various customer spacecraft and NASA assets, including characterization of communications degradation due to co-channel interferers.
Make a budget
Including a salary range in your senior staff systems engineer job description is one of the best ways to attract top talent. A senior staff systems engineer can vary based on:
- Location. For example, senior staff systems engineers' average salary in missouri is 30% less than in alaska.
- Seniority. Entry-level senior staff systems engineers 40% less than senior-level senior staff systems engineers.
- Certifications. A senior staff systems engineer with certifications usually earns a higher salary.
- Company. Working for an established firm or a new start-up company can make a big difference in a senior staff systems engineer's salary.
Average senior staff systems engineer salary
$139,932yearly
$67.28 hourly rateEntry-level senior staff systems engineer salary$108,000 yearly salaryUpdated December 16, 2025Average senior staff systems engineer salary by state
Rank State Avg. salary Hourly rate 1 Washington $156,911 $75 2 California $150,739 $72 3 Alabama $132,764 $64 4 Massachusetts $131,577 $63 5 Maryland $129,289 $62 6 New Jersey $128,697 $62 7 Virginia $128,554 $62 8 Arizona $125,051 $60 9 Texas $124,970 $60 10 Georgia $122,663 $59 11 Michigan $120,995 $58 12 Minnesota $118,756 $57 13 Colorado $115,361 $55 Average senior staff systems engineer salary by company
Rank Company Average salary Hourly rate Job openings 1 Cheniere Energy $184,966 $88.93 3 2 Google $163,153 $78.44 367 3 Theranos $160,618 $77.22 1 4 NIO $148,330 $71.31 2 5 SolarWinds $147,849 $71.08 6 LinkedIn $144,876 $69.65 38 7 Tesla $144,587 $69.51 48 8 Cadence Design Systems $143,752 $69.11 25 9 Motion Recruitment $142,301 $68.41 27 10 Samsung Electronics Device Solutions (Semiconductor & Display) $142,155 $68.34 37 11 Synaptics $141,325 $67.94 1 12 Qualcomm $141,262 $67.91 111 13 Cohere Technologies $140,854 $67.72 7 14 Xilinx $140,810 $67.70 15 Tarana Wireless $140,538 $67.57 16 Blackhawk Network $140,533 $67.56 17 Samsung Telecommunications America General LLC $140,437 $67.52 18 NextNav $140,437 $67.52 19 Element Biosciences $140,088 $67.35 1 20 Renesas Electronics $139,884 $67.25 12 Writing a senior staff systems engineer job description
A job description for a senior staff systems engineer role includes a summary of the job's main responsibilities, required skills, and preferred background experience. Including a salary range can also go a long way in attracting more candidates to apply, and showing the first name of the hiring manager can also make applicants more comfortable. As an example, here's a senior staff systems engineer job description:
Senior staff systems engineer job description example
Post your job
There are a few common ways to find senior staff systems engineers for your business:
- Promoting internally or recruiting from your existing workforce.
- Ask for referrals from friends, family members, and current employees.
- Attend job fairs at local colleges to meet candidates with the right educational background.
- Use social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to recruit passive job-seekers.
- Post your senior staff systems engineer job on Zippia to find and attract quality senior staff systems engineer candidates.
- Use niche websites such as dice, engineering.com, stack overflow, it job pro.
- Post a job on free websites.
Interview candidates
To successfully recruit senior staff systems engineers, your first interview needs to engage with candidates to learn about their interest in the role and experience in the field. You can go into more detail about the company, the role, and the responsibilities during follow-up interviews.
You should also ask about candidates' unique skills and talents to see if they match the ideal candidate profile you developed earlier. Candidates good enough for the next step can complete the technical interview.
Sometimes, it's not enough to interview senior staff systems engineer candidates, so you can ask them to do a test project. If you are not a technical person and don't know what a test project should be, you can use these websites:
- TestDome
- CodeSignal
- Testlify
- BarRaiser
- Coderbyte
The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.
Send a job offer and onboard your new senior staff systems engineer
Once you've found the senior staff systems 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 equally important to follow up with applicants who don't get the job with an email letting them know that the position has been filled.
Once that's done, you can draft an onboarding schedule for the new senior staff systems engineer. Human Resources should complete Employee Action Forms and ensure that onboarding paperwork is completed, including I-9s, benefits enrollment, federal and state tax forms, etc. They should also ensure that new employee files are created for internal recordkeeping.
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 senior staff systems engineer?
Hiring a senior staff systems engineer comes with both the one-time cost per hire and ongoing costs. The cost of recruiting senior staff systems engineers involves promoting the job and spending time conducting interviews. Ongoing costs include employee salary, training, benefits, insurance, and equipment. It is essential to consider the cost of senior staff systems engineer recruiting as well the ongoing costs of maintaining the new employee.
Senior staff systems engineers earn a median yearly salary is $139,932 a year in the US. However, if you're looking to find senior staff systems engineers for hire on a contract or per-project basis, hourly rates typically range between $51 and $87.
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Updated December 16, 2025