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Do you need someone to develop, maintain, monitor, and troubleshoot your technical infrastructure? Consider hiring a systems engineer. These professionals are experts in designing and managing information technology (IT) systems and processes. They can also test and evaluate systems development and products and keep your systems competitive to increase customer trust.
However, hiring the best systems engineer for your startup is an uphill battle. Although job sites like Fiverr and Upwork are bustling with systems engineers, only a select few have the experience and skills to make your company thrive.
That's why we've written this comprehensive guide to help you hire systems engineers that are a perfect fit for your business. Read on to learn more about systems engineering and the professionals who work in this field. Along the way, we'll also share tips for writing systems engineering job descriptions and interview questions.
An interdisciplinary area of IT engineering and systems management, systems engineering involves designing, testing, and managing composite systems over their life cycle. Essentially, systems engineering applies engineering principles to IT systems and architecture. Instead of working with transistors and circuits, systems engineers work with computer hardware, programming languages, clouds, and more.
Systems engineering aims to manage risks in company systems and processes, including those associated with late delivery, unintended consequences, and excess cost. Systems engineers accomplish this by crafting solutions that meet the technical needs of customers and businesses.
As experts in systems engineering, systems engineers play a critical role in your IT infrastructure. Their duties usually include:
Systems engineers are also responsible for:
Hiring systems engineers can make your business more competitive. The right hire can look for ways to improve your systems and design new solutions from scratch. You may want to onboard one or two systems engineers because they:
A systems engineer's salary typically depends on experience and skill level. Entry-level or junior engineers and senior professionals tend to have significantly different wages.
Entry-level or beginner systems engineers have under three years of experience. Most of them are fresh grads with bachelor's degrees in engineering, IT, computer science, and other related fields. However, some are self-taught or graduates of non-traditional institutions like boot camps.
These systems engineers have little professional experience, so they have fewer skills and lower salaries. You may have to invest in educational and mentorship opportunities to help them reach their potential.
According to Glassdoor, the average U.S.-based entry-level systems engineer makes $78,818 per year.
Entry-level systems engineers should have the following skills:
Junior systems engineers have two to four years of professional experience. According to Glassdoor, the average U.S.-based junior systems engineer earns $92,380 per year.
Most companies expect junior systems engineers to have the following skillset:
Senior systems engineers have over four years of experience. Glassdoor has revealed that the average U.S.-based senior systems engineer earns $119,832 per year.
Senior systems engineers have the following skills and responsibilities:
As you can see, hiring a systems engineer offers many advantages. Good systems engineers can help you develop innovative solutions and monitor your IT infrastructure. They can also aid you in managing the entire lifecycle of various IT networks and systems.
But before you start hiring, you need to consider potential hires' qualifications, skills, experience levels, and salaries. Here's a breakdown of what you should look for in your new engineer:
The best fit for your company should have the following technical skills:
Your hire should know how to use, fix, support, and maintain hardware. Hardware refers to the physical parts of a computer, including components and peripherals.
Components are the internal hardware parts such as hard drives, motherboards, and RAM. Peripherals include external devices like printers, keyboards, and microphones.
Like other IT personnel, systems engineers must have solid programming skills. Here are the main languages that systems engineers should know:
Besides knowing how to program and fix hardware, your hire also needs solid technical support skills. Specifically, engineers need to know how to do the following for in-house departments, colleagues, clients, and stakeholders:
Your systems engineering hire should know how to use virtualization technology. Virtualization lets you use a computer's full capacity by splitting its capabilities among many virtual machines (VMs). Although running on the part of the underlying computer hardware, each VM behaves like a separate computer.
Your hire should know the following types of virtualization:
Systems engineers should also have a thorough understanding of cloud architecture. Here are some specific cloud engineering skills to look for:
Last but not least, systems engineers need to use different operating systems. They should know how to install, fix, and write scripts in Windows, macOS, and Linux. If your company works with smart devices, your hire should also know how to use and modify systems in iOS, Android, HarmonyOS, and other popular smart device operating systems.
Learn More: The Benefits of Adding a Full Stack Developer to Your Team
Besides having a solid grasp of technical concepts like programming and IT systems, the best systems engineer for your team should also have solid soft skills. Without these, your hire may not fit perfectly in your workforce. Here's a brief overview of the soft skills your engineer should have:
Like other engineers, systems engineers need to be analytical. They should constantly ask questions and analyze the systems and processes around them.
Systems engineers also need strong written and oral communication skills. They need to know when to listen and speak and how to take criticism in stride. Otherwise, they won't be able to collaborate with a broad range of team members, departments, stakeholders, and clients.
Your hires must have a lot of patience to create and manage complex systems. They should be able to look at all the small details to grasp the big picture and test every component and application in your system. Even after many failed attempts, systems engineers need to keep on testing to find errors.
System engineers also need well-honed organizational skills to handle the amount of data in your systems and juggle multiple projects simultaneously. They must be able to track history and status accurately and create reports and documents for colleagues, stakeholders, and clients with non-technical backgrounds.
Once you've created a list of must-have skills for systems engineers, it's time to start hiring. Here's how:
Where to find system engineers for your company? There are many places to source and hire professionals with the right skills, including:
You can use freelancing sites like Fiverr and Upwork to locate hires for your team. Many freelance systems engineers on these platforms charge budget-friendly rates that you can't find anywhere else. However, there is no pre-vetting, and you may need to go through piles of resumes and tests to locate the right fit.
Another great option for hiring systems engineers is LinkedIn. Home to 1.6 million active job seekers, LinkedIn has plenty of communities and tools to kickstart the hiring process.
Consider using the following LinkedIn business tools to locate and hire systems engineers:
If you have limited energy and time for hiring and onboarding talent, consider partnering with a talent marketplace. Unlike freelance sites and LinkedIn, which require you to vet and test candidates manually, talent marketplaces already have pre-vetted systems engineers.
Some talent marketplaces will also help you deal with complex human resources challenges, such as immigration, payroll, and compliance issues.
If you decide on freelancer sites or similar options that require marketing for hiring candidates, you'll need a compelling systems engineer job description to attract the best talent. Your job ad should cover the following at a minimum:
Here's an example of a systems engineer job description:
Revelo is looking for a Remote Senior Systems Engineer to join our globally-distributed team. We need a highly-skilled Senior Systems Engineer with at least five years of experience to help us create, test, and deploy effective IT systems within our company.
This role is open to Senior Systems Engineers in the following time zones:
Company Description:
Revelo is a customer-centric talent marketplace that matches FAANG-caliber programmers with startups worldwide. Check out our website to learn more.
Duties:
Requirements:
Compensation and Benefits:
Schedule:
Once candidates start rushing in, you'll need to vet them for expertise and experience. After the initial selection based on portfolios, the interview process will help you the most in making a final pick.
Here are ten questions that should aid you in learning more about candidates' work ethic, personality, and experience:
With so many candidates to vet, finding and hiring the best systems engineer for your business can be time-consuming and frustrating. Fortunately, Revelo can help.
We are a talent platform that helps you source, hire, and manage highly-experienced systems engineers. All our talents have been pre-vetted for their English proficiency, skills, and knowledge. We boast systems engineers specializing in every tech stack and language, including Perl, Python, C++, C, and Ruby. All you need to do is make a pick and start working.
Contact us today to start hiring systems engineers.
Our talent pool of senior software developers are pre-screened across 100+ skills, including React, Python, Node, Ruby on Rails, and more.
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Hiring a full-time developer through Revelo is a simple 3-step process. First, you tell us your hiring needs. Second, we match you to the best developers within 3 days. Third, you interview the candidates you like and hire the one you like most.