At Pacific Gas and Electric, the Systems Engineer plays a crucial role in maintaining and modernizing one of the largest combined natural gas and electric energy infrastructures in the United States. This position sits at the intersection of information technology, operational technology, and physical grid infrastructure. You will be responsible for ensuring that the hardware, software, and network systems supporting energy delivery remain resilient, secure, and highly available for millions of California residents.

The work of a Systems Engineer directly impacts grid reliability, emergency response systems, and the integration of clean energy resources. Because Pacific Gas and Electric operates under strict regulatory oversight, your engineering decisions will directly support compliance with safety, environmental, and state mandates. You will work on critical problem spaces such as asset management, grid automation, and telemetry systems, helping transition legacy systems into modern, software-defined utility networks.

This role is particularly vital as the utility industry undergoes a massive digital transformation. With a significant portion of the utility workforce approaching retirement, Pacific Gas and Electric is actively looking for forward-thinking engineers who can build sustainable, long-term system architectures. Joining as a Systems Engineer means taking on the responsibility of securing California's energy future while working within a highly collaborative, safety-first operational culture.

The interview questions at Pacific Gas and Electric are designed to evaluate your practical engineering experience, your behavioral alignment with utility operations, and your understanding of the company's unique regulatory environment. While technical questions will target your system lifecycle knowledge, behavioral questions are heavily prioritized to gauge your leadership potential and safety mindset.

Behavioral & Leadership

These questions evaluate your past experiences, your ability to lead projects, and how you handle challenging workplace dynamics using the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) method.

• Describe a complex technical project you led from conception to completion.
• Tell me about a time when you had to work with a difficult stakeholder or team member to achieve a goal.

Preparing for an interview at Pacific Gas and Electric requires a balanced approach. You must demonstrate solid technical engineering principles while showcasing a strong alignment with the company's operational values, particularly safety and long-term career commitment.

Role-Related Knowledge – You must understand basic systems engineering lifecycles, configuration management, and system integration. Interviewers will evaluate your ability to apply these concepts to real-world utility systems, ensuring you can manage complex deployments safely and efficiently.

Problem-Solving & Adaptability – Utility environments are highly dynamic and subject to environmental and regulatory shifts. You will be assessed on how you structure your approach to ambiguous problems, analyze risks, and adapt system designs to meet evolving compliance standards.

Leadership & Initiative – Pacific Gas and Electric values engineers who do not wait for instructions when a critical issue arises. You should demonstrate a history of taking ownership of projects, driving cross-functional collaboration, and proactively identifying areas for system improvement.

Cultural Fit & Safety Mindset – Safety is the foundational value of all operations at the company. You must show that you prioritize safety, compliance, and ethical decision-making in your engineering practices, aligning with the heavily regulated nature of the utility sector.

The interview process for a Systems Engineer at Pacific Gas and Electric is designed to be highly interactive, conversational, and focused on practical experience rather than rigid, academic testing. The company frequently sources candidates directly from university recruiting events, professional conferences (such as the Society of Women Engineers), and traditional online applications. Depending on the entry point, the timeline can move exceptionally fast, sometimes resulting in same-day or next-day offers.

For standard applicants, the process begins with an online recorded video screen, followed by a departmental phone interview, and concludes with an on-site visit. Throughout the journey, the hiring team focuses heavily on behavioral alignment and your ability to articulate your past project experiences clearly.

The visual timeline above outlines the standard multi-stage interview journey for candidates applying through traditional channels. It highlights the progression from the initial digital screening to the final interactive on-site evaluation.

Candidates who are sourced directly from university or professional conferences may experience an accelerated version of this pipeline, occasionally bypassing the online recorded screen entirely. Regardless of your specific path, you should prepare thoroughly for each stage, keeping in mind that communication between steps can sometimes take several weeks due to the company's large-scale corporate structure.

To succeed in the Pacific Gas and Electric hiring process, you must excel across three primary evaluation areas. Each area tests a different facet of your readiness to handle the responsibilities of a Systems Engineer in a critical infrastructure environment.

Behavioral Execution (STAR Method)

Behavioral interviews at the company are highly structured but delivered in a conversational format. Interviewers want to hear real, honest stories about your past experiences, particularly those that highlight leadership, collaboration, and resilience.

Be ready to go over:

• Project Leadership – Your ability to guide a project team, manage resources, and deliver results under pressure.
• Conflict Resolution – How you navigate disagreements with colleagues, managers, or external contractors while keeping the project on track.
• Overcoming Failure – Real examples of when things did not go as planned, what you learned, and how you adapted.

Example scenarios:

• Managing a project where a key team member suddenly departed, forcing you to reallocate tasks and adjust the timeline.
• Convincing a skeptical stakeholder to adopt a new system architecture or operational process.

Utility Industry & Regulatory Context

Operating as a regulated monopoly means that Pacific Gas and Electric does not function like a typical tech company. System designs must account for strict compliance, public safety, and long-term asset lifecycles.

Be ready to go over:

• Regulatory Compliance – How system designs must incorporate state and federal mandates, particularly around safety and environmental impact.
• Aging Infrastructure – Strategies for integrating modern digital systems with legacy physical assets that may be decades old.
• Risk Mitigation – Designing redundant systems to prevent widespread outages or safety hazards during extreme weather events.

Example scenarios:

• Explaining how you would design a system upgrade to comply with a new environmental or safety standard.
• Discussing the challenges of migrating data from an obsolete legacy database to a modern cloud-based system.

Systems Design & Project Lifecycle

As a Systems Engineer, you must demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of how systems are conceptualized, built, verified, and maintained over time.

Be ready to go over:

• Requirements Engineering – How to translate high-level business and operational needs into precise technical specifications.
• Verification and Validation – Methods for testing systems to ensure they meet all design requirements and operate safely under stress.
• Lifecycle Management – Planning for the long-term maintenance, patching, and eventual decommissioning of hardware and software assets.

Example scenarios:

• Outlining the testing protocols you would implement before deploying a critical software patch to a grid monitoring system.
• Designing a backup and recovery plan for a high-availability database used by field operations.