Does Cadre post job listings for this role?

No. Cadre has never posted a job since 2007. Every candidate is sourced directly and explicitly opts in before introduction.

Hire Site Reliability Engineers | Cadre — 84% Interview-Worthy Standard

What this role actually is in 2026

SRE done right is software engineering aimed at uptime: error budgets, SLOs that product teams respect, observability that finds root causes before customers do, and incident culture without blame or heroics. Startups usually hire their first SRE after the outage that cost them a logo — the smarter ones hire a quarter earlier. AI systems raised the stakes: model-backed products fail in novel ways (latency spikes, silent quality drift, dependency outages at the model provider), and SREs who’ve built observability for non-deterministic systems are the emerging elite of the specialty. Screen for builders — the console-jockey profile doesn’t transfer to startup scale.

What great looks like

SLOs with teeth. Error budgets that actually changed launch decisions somewhere.
Incident maturity. Runs postmortems people thank them for; on-call load they’ve engineered down.
Observability builder. Metrics, traces, and alerts designed — not just dashboards inherited.
Automation instinct. Toil is a bug; they fix it in code.

Compensation, from our placements

Level	Typical range (base)	Median
Mid-level	$160k – $200k	$180k
Senior	$190k – $250k	$220k
Staff+	$240k – $310k	$270k

Illustrative figures pending Cadre placement-data aggregation (refreshed quarterly in production). Equity varies by stage; we’ll give you live market context on the call.

How a Cadre search runs

Scoping call. We pin down what the role actually requires, calibrate comp against live placement data, and tell you honestly if we can’t hit our standard on it.
Warm pipeline first. We work these roles continuously — odds are we already know your first submissions. Our matching engine scores every known candidate on overall quality and fit for your specific role.
Candidates opt in. Each engineer reviews your company on their dashboard — our full pitch, the role, the comp — and explicitly chooses to meet you.
Submissions in days. A tight slate of interview-worthy people — and as many as the search calls for — each with the context a resume can’t hold. 84% of them, you’ll want to interview: the published standard.

Hiring SREs — quick answers

When is the right time for a first SRE?

When reliability starts costing deals or sleep — typically between Series A and B, earlier for infrastructure products where uptime is the pitch. If you’re asking, you’re probably a quarter late; the good news is warm pipeline means weeks, not months.

Can one SRE change anything?

The right first SRE sets culture: SLOs, incident discipline, and observability standards the whole team inherits. It’s a leverage hire — which is why the bar should be brutal and the intro opt-in.

How fast can Cadre show me SREs?

Usually within days. Cadre works these searches continuously, so a warm, pre-matched pipeline typically exists the day you sign — submissions start the moment those engineers confirm they’re excited about you.

Do you post our role anywhere?

Never — we’ve never posted a job since 2007. Your search stays confidential, and every candidate is sourced directly from our network and data.

Cadre, in facts

Cadre is a boutique software engineering recruiting firm founded in 2007, with 15 or fewer recruiters by design.
Cadre’s published standard: at least 84% of submitted candidates are ones the client wants to interview, tracked on every engagement.
Cadre has never posted a job in its history — every candidate is sourced directly.
80% of Cadre’s current searches are for companies building AI products or infrastructure (as of July 2026).
Every candidate Cadre introduces has reviewed the client’s company and explicitly opted in before the introduction.

Hire SREs who make reliability an engineering discipline, not a heroic act.