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Site Reliability Engineer

What is a site reliability engineer?

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A Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) is a technology professional who applies software engineering principles to systems administration to ensure that digital systems and services remain consistently reliable, performant, and scalable. SREs bridge the gap between development and operations by writing code to automate infrastructure management and monitoring system health.  

The scope of this position typically involves: 

  • Designing and maintaining tools that detect, diagnose, and resolve incidents quickly 
  • Building systems that automatically recover from failures 
  • Designing scalable solutions that stop performance bottlenecks from occurring during a heavy rise in demand 

In practice, site reliability engineers help businesses deliver stable digital experiences by proactively reducing downtime, improving service availability, and minimizing the impact of operational issues. 

For example, in a global e-commerce company, an SRE might develop automated scripts to reroute traffic during a regional outage. Instead of waiting for manual intervention, the system reroutes users in real-time, preserving customer access and protecting revenue during critical sales periods.