Jobs / DevOps, SRE, and IT operations / 15-1299.08
Computer Systems Engineers/Architects
Design and develop solutions to complex applications problems, system administration issues, or network concerns. Perform systems management and integration functions.
- US jobs
- 435,370 (SOC 15-1299 group, "Computer Occupations, All Other")
- Median wage
- $116,580 a year
- Job family
- DevOps, SRE, and IT operations
Can agents do the work of computer systems engineers/architects?
We read the evidence at the level of the job family, DevOps, SRE, and IT operations:
- Task levelPartialMixed. On SREGym, the best agent fixes 72.2% of injected faults end to end. On ITBench-AA, no model names the root cause of more than half of Kubernetes incidents (best 47%). Infrastructure as code has only generation tests with 2024-era results (IaC-Eval, 36.7%). We found no public benchmark with recent results that tests agents making Terraform changes to live infrastructure.
- Project levelUnexploredNo benchmark in our collection tests operations work at project scale, such as a multi-day migration, a platform upgrade, or an on-call rotation.
Benchmarks for the job family
These cover work in devops, sre, and it operations, not always this occupation's tasks.
- 36.7%GPT-4 with retrieval-augmented generation · 2024Emerging
- 47%Claude Opus 4.7 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort) · 27 May 2026Emerging
- OSWorld-Verifiedby HKU, Salesforce AI Research, Carnegie Mellon University and University of Waterloo90.2%Intelligence-Indeed Agent · 25 Jul 2026Saturated
- 84.7%NexAU-AHE + GPT-5.5 · 23 Apr 2026Retired
Typical tasks
From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.
- Communicate with staff or clients to understand specific system requirements.
- Investigate system component suitability for specified purposes, and make recommendations regarding component use.
- Provide customers or installation teams guidelines for implementing secure systems.
- Direct the analysis, development, and operation of complete computer systems.
- Direct the installation of operating systems, network or application software, or computer or network hardware.
- Monitor system operation to detect potential problems.
- Identify system data, hardware, or software components required to meet user needs.
- Perform ongoing hardware and software maintenance operations, including installing or upgrading hardware or software.
- Verify stability, interoperability, portability, security, or scalability of system architecture.
- Research, test, or verify proper functioning of software patches and fixes.
- Configure servers to meet functional specifications.
- Collaborate with engineers or software developers to select appropriate design solutions or ensure the compatibility of system components.
Other job titles for this occupation (35)
Infrastructure Engineer · IT Architect (Information Technology Architect) · IT Engineer (Information Technology Engineer) · Network and Infrastructure Engineer · Solutions Architect · Systems Application Engineer · Systems Architect · Systems Consultant · Systems Engineer · Web Architect · Application Systems Architect · Cloud Architect · Cloud Engineer · Cloud Infrastructure Engineer · Cloud Platform Engineer · Cloud Software Engineer · Cloud Solution Architect · Computer Systems Architect · Data Platform Engineer · Enterprise Architect · Firmware Engineer · Information Architect · Knowledge Architect · Machine Learning Engineer · Network Analyst · Network Engineer · Platform Engineer · Platform Software Engineer · Reliability Engineer · Software Systems Engineer · Solutions Engineer · Systems Developer · Systems Requirements Planner · Target Developer · Technical Architect