Sre Engineer Jobs in Illinois
Sre Engineer jobs in Illinois are in strong demand, concentrated in cloud infrastructure, fintech, healthcare technology, and enterprise software sectors, with openings at every level from associate site reliability engineer through principal and staff-level roles. Chicago anchors the market as one of the most active SRE hiring metros in the Midwest, with secondary clusters in Naperville and Schaumburg where large technology and financial services operations are based. Established Illinois employers such as Morningstar, Allstate, and Discover Financial Services maintain consistent SRE hiring, particularly in observability, platform reliability, and distributed systems. Find a role that fits below and apply directly.
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Optum is a global organization that delivers care, aided by technology to help millions of people live healthier lives. The work you do with our team will directly improve health outcomes by connecting people with the care, pharmacy benefits, data and resources they need to feel their best. Here, you will find a culture guided by inclusion, talented peers, comprehensive benefits and career development opportunities. Come make an impact on the communities we serve as you help us advance health optimization on a global scale. Join us to start Caring. Connecting. Growing together.
To support this mission, OSIT has initiated a multi‑year modernization program aimed at updating and enhancing enterprise technology systems in accordance with modern design standards
You'll enjoy the flexibility to telecommute* from anywhere within the U.S. as you take on some tough challenges.
Primary Responsibilities:
- Lead the implementation and continuous improvement of Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) practices including Service Level Indicators (SLIs), Service Level Objectives (SLOs), and Error Budgets to improve system reliability and operational excellence
- Design, deploy, and support highly available, scalable, and resilient cloud-native platforms across AWS, Azure, and Kubernetes environments
- Build and maintain observability solutions utilizing Datadog, Splunk, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, and related monitoring technologies to provide end-to-end visibility into platform and application health
- Develop operational dashboards, intelligent alerting, service health scorecards, and reliability metrics to improve incident detection and operational awareness
- Lead production incident response activities, root cause analysis (RCA), and post-incident remediation efforts to improve service stability and reduce recurrence
- Develop and maintain Infrastructure as Code (IaC) solutions using Terraform and cloud automation technologies
- Build automation and self-healing capabilities to reduce operational toil, improve platform resilience, and accelerate incident resolution
- Partner with software engineering, architecture, security, and platform teams to improve production readiness, reliability, scalability, and performance
- Support and optimize Kubernetes-based container platforms and microservices running in production environments
- Design and implement CI/CD and GitOps practices utilizing GitHub Actions, ArgoCD, Azure DevOps, or equivalent deployment technologies
- Drive adoption of AI-enabled operational capabilities including anomaly detection, intelligent alerting, incident automation, and operational analytics
- Mentor engineers on SRE principles, observability, automation, operational excellence, and cloud-native best practices
You'll be rewarded and recognized for your performance in an environment that will challenge you and give you clear direction on what it takes to succeed in your role as well as provide development for other roles you may be interested in.
Required Qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or related field
- 7+ years of experience in Site Reliability Engineering, DevOps, Platform Engineering, Cloud Engineering, or Software Engineering
- 4+ years of hands-on experience supporting cloud infrastructure in AWS, Azure, or GCP environments
- 3+ years of hands-on experience managing Kubernetes platforms including EKS, AKS, or GKE in production environments
- 3+ years of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) experience using Terraform or equivalent automation technologies
- 3+ years of hands-on experience with observability and monitoring platforms such as Datadog, Splunk, Dynatrace, Grafana, Prometheus, OpenTelemetry, or similar solutions
- 3+ years of experience implementing and supporting monitoring, logging, distributed tracing, alerting, SLIs, SLOs, and Error Budget frameworks
- 3+ years of experience building and supporting CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, Jenkins, ArgoCD, or equivalent technologies
- 3+ years of experience with scripting and automation skills using Python, Bash, PowerShell, or similar languages
- Ability to participate in rotating on-call support schedules
- United States citizenship is required for this position
- Must be able to obtain and maintain a suitability or determination of eligibility for a Confidential/Secret or Top-Secret security clearance
Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience supporting mission-critical production systems and leading incident response and root cause analysis activities
- Strong understanding of distributed systems, cloud-native architectures, networking, security, IAM, encryption, and reliability engineering principles
- Proven ability to collaborate effectively across engineering, platform, architecture, and security teams
- Experience implementing enterprise observability solutions using Datadog APM, Splunk Observability Cloud, Dynatrace, Grafana, or OpenTelemetry
- Experience with AIOps, intelligent alerting, anomaly detection, operational automation, and predictive analytics platforms
- Experience supporting AI/ML, Generative AI, Large Language Models (LLMs), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), or data-intensive workloads in production environments
- Experience with GitOps frameworks such as ArgoCD or Flux
- Experience supporting multi-region and multi-cluster cloud deployments
- Experience mentoring engineers and leading reliability improvements across multiple teams
- Experience working within regulated environments such as Healthcare, HIPAA, SOC2, NIST, or FedRAMP
- Industry certifications such as Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA), AWS Solutions Architect, Azure Solutions Architect Expert, HashiCorp Terraform Associate, or equivalent cloud certifications
- All employees working remotely will be required to adhere to UnitedHealth Group's Telecommuter Policy
Pay is based on several factors including but not limited to local labor markets, education, work experience, certifications, etc. In addition to your salary, we offer benefits such as, a comprehensive benefits package, incentive and recognition programs, equity stock purchase and 401k contribution (all benefits are subject to eligibility requirements). No matter where or when you begin a career with us, you'll find a far-reaching choice of benefits and incentives. The salary for this role will range from $91,700 to $163,700 annually based on full-time employment. We comply with all minimum wage laws as applicable.
Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.
Application Deadline: This will be posted for a minimum of 2 business days or until a sufficient candidate pool has been collected. Job posting may come down early due to volume of applicants.
At UnitedHealth Group, our mission is to help people live healthier lives and make the health system work better for everyone. We believe everyone-of every race, gender, sexuality, age, location, and income-deserves the opportunity to live their healthiest life. Today, however, there are still far too many barriers to good health which are disproportionately experienced by people of color, historically marginalized groups, and those with lower incomes. We are committed to mitigating our impact on the environment and enabling and delivering equitable care that addresses health disparities and improves health outcomes - an enterprise priority reflected in our mission.
Diversity creates a healthier atmosphere: UnitedHealth Group is an Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law.
UnitedHealth Group is a drug-free workplace. Candidates are required to pass a drug test before beginning employment.
#RPO, #GREEN
See All 20 Sre Engineer Jobs in Illinois
Find roles in Illinois that match your experience and apply in just a few clicks.
Find Sre Engineer JobsSre Engineer Jobs by City in Illinois
Where Illinois roles are concentrated, by current openings.
Sre Engineer Job Market in Illinois
A snapshot from current Illinois openings, updated as new roles post.
Who's Hiring



Top Industries Hiring
- Investment & Asset Management
- Technology & Software
What Illinois Employers Look For
The qualifications that appear most often in sre engineer jobs across Illinois.
- Bachelor's degree in computer science, software engineering, or a related technical field
- Proficiency with Linux systems administration and cloud platforms such as AWS or GCP
- Hands-on experience with container orchestration tools, particularly Kubernetes and Docker
- Demonstrated ability to write infrastructure-as-code using Terraform or similar tooling
- Experience building and maintaining monitoring and observability stacks including Prometheus and Grafana
- Strong programming or scripting skills in Python, Go, or Bash for automation and tooling
Sre Engineer Jobs in Illinois: Frequently Asked Questions
How do you become a sre engineer in Illinois?
There is no state-issued license or registration required to work as an sre engineer in Illinois. The typical path begins with a bachelor's degree in computer science, software engineering, or information systems, followed by experience in systems administration, software development, or DevOps roles. Illinois employers, particularly in Chicago's fintech and healthtech sectors, also hire candidates who demonstrate proficiency through industry certifications such as those offered by AWS, Google Cloud, or the Linux Foundation, especially when paired with a strong portfolio of automation or reliability projects.
How much do sre engineers make in Illinois?
Sre engineers in Illinois earn a median of about $132,110 a year, based on May 2025 Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data, ranging from around $80,980 for the lowest 10% to over $194,740 for the top 10%. Pay rises with experience, specialty, and employer.
Which companies hire sre engineers in Illinois?
Employers hiring sre engineers in Illinois right now include Comcast, JPMorganChase, and DRW, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of November 2026. Illinois's concentration of financial services firms, insurance companies, and healthcare technology organizations in the Chicago metro means SRE demand is particularly strong among large enterprises managing high-availability, mission-critical systems.
Which Illinois cities have the most sre engineer jobs?
The Illinois cities with the most sre engineer openings are Chicago, Normal, and Champaign. Chicago drives the bulk of demand because it is home to the headquarters and major technology operations of large financial services, insurance, and healthcare companies that require dedicated site reliability teams, while suburban hubs like Schaumburg and Naperville attract openings from enterprise technology and consulting firms with significant Illinois footprints.
Are there remote sre engineer jobs in Illinois?
Yes, and more than most fields. About 50% of sre engineer openings tied to Illinois are remote or hybrid as of November 2026, reflecting how well-suited the role is to distributed work. The parts of the role most commonly performed remotely include on-call incident response, infrastructure automation, and platform monitoring, while some Illinois employers do require on-site presence for architecture reviews or regulated environment work.
How can I get hired as a sre engineer in Illinois with little or no experience?
The most realistic entry path is moving laterally from a systems administrator, software developer, or DevOps associate role into an SRE position. Large Illinois-based employers in financial services and insurance regularly post associate or junior SRE openings designed for candidates with one to two years of infrastructure or software experience. Building a public portfolio of infrastructure-as-code projects on GitHub, earning a cloud certification from AWS or Google Cloud, and targeting companies with established engineering rotational programs or apprenticeships in the Chicago area significantly strengthens a new candidate's application.
Where can I find and apply to sre engineer jobs in Illinois?
You can find and apply to sre engineer jobs in Illinois on Migrate Mate, which lists current openings tied to Illinois employers and locations. Search the listings, find roles that fit your experience and location preference, and apply directly to the ones that match.
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