How to hire a senior technical system engineer

Senior technical system engineer hiring summary. Here are some key points about hiring senior technical system engineers in the United States:

There are a total of 167,770 senior technical system engineers in the US, and there are currently 173,061 job openings in this field.
The median cost to hire a senior technical system engineer is $1,633.
Small businesses spend $1,105 per senior technical system engineer on training each year, while large companies spend $658.
It takes between 36 and 42 days to fill the average role in the US.
It takes approximately 12 weeks for a new employee to reach full productivity levels.
HR departments typically allocate 15% of their budget towards recruitment efforts.
Phoenix, AZ, has the highest demand for senior technical system engineers, with 4 job openings.

How to hire a senior technical system engineer, step by step

To hire a senior technical system engineer, you should clearly understand the skills and experience you are looking for in a candidate, and allocate a budget for the position. You will also need to post and promote the job opening to reach potential candidates. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to hire a senior technical system engineer:

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

What does a senior technical system engineer do?

Senior Technical System Engineers manage the company's network systems and computers, including creating solutions to handle performance goals, network issues, and complex applications. They enhance the company's performance by planning and putting into practice infrastructure changes. These professionals oversee the daily operation support for network, storage, and server infrastructure. Other duties performed by Senior Technical System Engineers include building, patching, testing, and deploying complex channels and systems to meet the client's specifications and requirements. They also configure security settings for people and groups.

Learn more about the specifics of what a senior technical system engineer does

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Identify your hiring needs

The senior technical system 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?

You should also consider the ideal background you'd like them a senior technical system 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 senior technical system engineer that fits the bill.

Here's a comparison of senior technical system engineer salaries for various roles:

Type of Senior Technical System Engineer	Description	Hourly rate
Senior Technical System Engineer	Computer networks are critical parts of almost every organization. Network and computer systems administrators are responsible for the day-to-day operation of these networks.	$39-66
Systems Integration Engineer	A systems integration engineer is responsible for evaluating the efficiency and performance of the control systems to support business operations and requirements. Systems integration engineers develop technical solutions from business initiatives that would maximize a team's productivity and increase target performance... Show more	$37-67
Systems Support Engineer	Systems support engineers are information technology professionals who are responsible for building and maintaining the IT infrastructure of an organization. They are required to provide network administration and technical support to identify complex problem issues and come up with solutions to solve them... Show more	$29-52

Create an ideal candidate profile
Common skills:
- Infrastructure
- Cloud
- Architecture
- Windows Server
- VMware
- SAN
- OS
- Linux
- Troubleshoot
- Virtualization
- DNS
- Java
- C++
- DOD
Check all skills
Responsibilities:
- Manage Cisco switches, web filter, and wireless controllers.
- Provide functional and technical expertise in managing EMC SAN storage environments.
- Lead a team of UNIX and Intel systems professionals responsible for the administration and maintenance of countrywide internal business systems.
- Recruit to establish and manage Virtualization\Storage\Backup environments.
- Educate clients on enterprise storage technology, including SAN, NAS, and storage management solutions.
- Provide Linux and VMware systems engineering expertise.
More senior technical system engineer duties

Make a budget

Including a salary range in your senior technical system engineer job description helps attract top candidates to the position. A senior technical system engineer salary can be affected by several factors, such as geography, experience, seniority, certifications, and the prestige of the hiring company.

For example, the average salary for a senior technical system engineer in Montana may be lower than in California, and an entry-level senior technical system engineer usually earns less than a senior-level senior technical system engineer. Additionally, a senior technical system engineer with certifications may command a higher salary, and working for a well-known company or start-up may also impact an employee's pay.

Average senior technical system engineer salary

$107,278yearly

$51.58 hourly rate

Entry-level senior technical system engineer salary

$82,000 yearly salary

Updated December 17, 2025

Average senior technical system engineer salary by state

Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
1	California	$142,230	$68
2	Oregon	$115,773	$56
3	Arizona	$115,426	$55
4	Washington	$114,824	$55
5	Utah	$109,968	$53
6	Maryland	$107,181	$52
7	Florida	$105,956	$51
8	Massachusetts	$105,115	$51
9	Minnesota	$102,193	$49
10	New Jersey	$102,063	$49
11	Texas	$96,972	$47
12	North Carolina	$96,512	$46
13	Illinois	$96,250	$46
14	Louisiana	$95,363	$46
15	Tennessee	$95,127	$46
16	Virginia	$93,054	$45
17	Oklahoma	$90,979	$44
18	Ohio	$90,287	$43
19	Colorado	$85,906	$41
20	Indiana	$83,391	$40

Average senior technical system engineer salary by company

Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
1	Mayo Clinic	$137,515	$66.11	37
2	Rivian	$134,350	$64.59	22
3	Southern California Edison	$132,703	$63.80	18
4	LinkedIn	$130,140	$62.57	13
5	Amazon	$127,103	$61.11	940
6	Darden Restaurants	$123,740	$59.49
7	Pacific Gas and Electric	$123,227	$59.24
8	Compass Group USA	$116,515	$56.02	12
9	Zillow Group	$113,219	$54.43	2
10	Western Digital	$112,070	$53.88	51
11	Cliffs	$111,050	$53.39
12	Prime Therapeutics	$110,494	$53.12	1
13	Sound Transit	$110,274	$53.02	5
14	United	$110,232	$53.00	9
15	Merrill Lynch	$110,176	$52.97
16	First Horizon Bank	$109,407	$52.60	3
17	NexOne	$109,250	$52.52
18	Mta	$109,114	$52.46
19	Intrepid Solutions and Services	$108,710	$52.26	6
20	Alere	$108,340	$52.09

Writing a senior technical system engineer job description
A senior technical system 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. To help get you started, here's an example of a senior technical system engineer job description:
Senior technical system engineer job description example
- Bachelor's degree in a related field and at least 10-12 years' experience; or Master's degree and 8-10 years' experience or high school diploma/equivalent and 14 years experience.
- Minimum 8 years' of experience of hands-on experience in providing production and operational support for COTS and Custom software and Infrastructure components in 24x7 env
- Minimum 5 years of experience in leading team of Systems Engineers and Enterprise Platform (Siebel, Weblogic, Salesforce) Subject Matter experts
- Experience working in Agile environment
- Must have experience in providing production and operational support for Mission Critical Services running on one or more Enterprise platforms such as Siebel, Weblogic, Salesforce
- At least 5 years of experience working on Linux OS
- At least 5 years of experience in at least one DB (Oracle, Siebel, MySQL)
- Experience in providing production and operational support for Services in Cloud
- Experience with DevSecOps and CI/CD tools, e.g., Puppet (FOSS)
- U.S. Citizenship required; must have a Current, Interim Secret (or higher) clearance.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience in ServiceNow
- Experience in Agile tools such as ELM
- Experience working with Confluence
Peraton Overview
Peraton drives missions of consequence spanning the globe and extending to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. As the world's leading mission capability integrator and transformative enterprise IT provider, we deliver trusted and highly differentiated national security solutions and technologies that keep people safe and secure. Peraton serves as a valued partner to essential government agencies across the intelligence, space, cyber, defense, civilian, health, and state and local markets. Every day, our employees do the can't be done, solving the most daunting challenges facing our customers.

An Equal Opportunity Employer including Disability/Veteran.
For Colorado Residents Colorado Salary Minimum: $81,000
Colorado Salary Maximum: $196,600

The estimate displayed represents the typical salary range for this position, and is just one component of Peraton's total compensation package for employees. Other rewards may include annual bonuses, short- and long-term incentives, and program-specific awards. In addition, Peraton provides a variety of benefits to employees.
Post your job
To find senior technical system 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 senior technical system engineers they would recommend.
- Recruit at local colleges. Attend job fairs at local colleges to recruit entry-level senior technical system 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 senior technical system engineer job on Zippia to find and recruit senior technical system engineer candidates who meet your exact specifications.
- Use field-specific websites.
- Post a job on free websites.
Interview candidates
Your first interview with senior technical system engineer candidates should focus on their interest in the role and background experience. As the hiring process goes on, you can learn more about how they'd fit into the company culture in later rounds of interviews.
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.
While interviews are great, you will only sometimes learn enough from a conversation with a senior technical system engineer applicant. In those cases, having candidates complete a test project can go a long way in figuring out who's the most likely to succeed in the role. If you aren't a technical person and don't know how to design an appropriate test, you can ask someone else on the team to create it or take a look at these websites to get a few ideas:
- 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 technical system engineer
Once you've decided on a perfect senior technical system engineer candidate, it's time to write an offer letter. In addition to salary, it should include benefits and perks available to the employee. Qualified candidates may be considered for other positions, so make sure your offer is competitive. Candidates may wish to negotiate. Once you've settled on the details, formalize your agreement with a contract.
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.
Once that's done, you can draft an onboarding schedule for the new senior technical system 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 technical system engineer?

Recruiting senior technical system engineers involves both the one-time costs of hiring and the ongoing costs of adding a new employee to your team. Your spending during the hiring process will mostly be on things like promoting the job on job boards, reviewing and interviewing candidates, and onboarding the new hire. Ongoing costs will obviously involve the employee's salary, but also may include things like benefits.

Senior technical system engineers earn a median yearly salary is $107,278 a year in the US. However, if you're looking to find senior technical system engineers for hire on a contract or per-project basis, hourly rates typically range between $39 and $66.

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How to hire a Senior Technical System Engineer

Updated December 17, 2025

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How to hire a senior technical system engineer