Also called: SRE, Production Engineer
Keeps huge websites and apps running 24/7, and writes software to make them more reliable.
When a popular app goes down at 2 a.m., your pager goes off. You find the failing service, restore it, and then write a 'blameless' report on how to keep it from happening again.
Estimate; on-call bonuses common.
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
Bachelor's degree (4-year), about 5 years after high school. Bachelor's in CS plus software and operations experience.
Ways in: 4-year college, On-the-job training. Training cost: $15k – $60k.
Majors to look at: Computer Science, Computer Engineering.
Growing faster than average. Strong demand at large tech companies.
Medium risk for 10 years. AI SRE agents now diagnose many outages and write fixes; designing reliable systems and leading incidents stay human.
Classes: AP Computer Science A, AP Statistics, Physics.
Official data: O*NET occupation 15-1252.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.