In 1974, Satriani studied music with jazz guitarist Billy Bauer and with reclusive jazz pianist Lennie Tristano. The technically demanding Tristano greatly influenced Satriani’s playing. Satriani began teaching guitar, with his most notable student at the time being fellow Long Island native Steve Vai (both also went to the same high school). While he was teaching Vai, he was attending Five Towns College for studies in music. In 1978, Satriani moved to Berkeley, California, to pursue a music career. Soon after arriving in California, he resumed teaching. His students included Steve Vai, Kirk Hammett of Metallica, David Bryson of Counting Crows, Kevin Cadogan from Third Eye Blind, Larry LaLonde of Primus and Possessed, Alex Skolnick of Testament, Rick Hunolt (ex-Exodus), Phil Kettner of Lȧȧz Rockit, Geoff Tyson of T-Ride, Charlie Hunter and David Turin.

Originated by the now-defunct magazine BAM in 1977 as the Bay Area Music Awards, the “Bammies” were expanded and renamed in 1998 to honor music across California.

Satriani started playing in a San Francisco-based band called the Squares, where he continued to network and make musical connections (Squares sound man John Cuniberti co-produced his second album). He was invited to join the Greg Kihn Band, who were on the downside of their career, but whose generosity helped Satriani pay off the overwhelming credit-card debt from recording his first album Not of This Earth released in 1986.

Satriani is credited on many other albums, including guitar duties on shock rocker Alice Cooper’s 1991 album Hey Stoopid, Spinal Tap’s 1992 album Break Like the Wind, Blue Öyster Cult’s 1988 album Imaginos, and band members Stu Hamm and Gregg Bissonette’s solo albums. He was credited with singing background vocals on the 1986 debut album by Crowded House. In 2003, he played lead guitar on The Yardbirds’s release Birdland. In 2006, he made appearances on tracks for Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan’s solo CD/DVD dual disc Gillan’s Inn.

In 1987, Satriani’s second album Surfing with the Alien produced radio hits and was the first all-instrumental release to chart so highly in many years. The track “Crushing Day” was featured on the soundtrack of a low-budget film titled It Takes Two. Surfing with the Alien is his most acclaimed work, according to aggregator Acclaimed Music. In 1988 Satriani helped produce the EP The Eyes of Horror for the death metal band Possessed. That same year, he also released an EP titled Dreaming #11, which featured the song “The Crush of Love”. In 1989, Satriani released the album Flying in a Blue Dream. It was said to be inspired by the death of his father, who died in 1989 during the recording of the album. “One Big Rush” featured on the soundtrack to the Cameron Crowe movie Say Anything…. “The Forgotten Part II” was featured on a Labatt Blue commercial in Canada in 1993. “Can’t Slow Down” featured in a car-chase sequence in the Don Johnson-starring show Nash Bridges. “The Bells of Lal (Part One)” was featured for an eerie scene in the 1996 Billy Bob Thornton movie Sling Blade, while Carl is sharpening a lawnmower blade to kill the menacing Doyle Hargraves played by Dwight Yoakam.

In 1992, Satriani released The Extremist, his most commercially successful album to date. Radio stations across the US picked up “Summer Song”, which got a major boost when Sony used it in a major commercial campaign for their Discman portable CD players. “Cryin'”, “Friends”, and the title track were regional hits on radio. In late 1993, Satriani joined Deep Purple as a temporary replacement for departed guitarist Ritchie Blackmore during the band’s Japanese tour. The concerts were a success, and Satriani was asked to join the band permanently, but he declined, having just signed a multialbum solo deal with Sony, and Steve Morse took the guitarist slot in Deep Purple.

Satriani uses a number of other JS models such as the JS double neck model, JS700 (primary axe on the self-titled CD and seen on the 1995 tour “Joe Satriani,” which features a fixed bridge, P-90 pickups, and a matching mahogany body and neck), JS6/JS6000 (natural body), JS1 (the original JS model), JS2000 (fixed bridge model), a variety of JS100s, JS1000s and JS1200s with custom paint work, and a large amount of prototype JSs. All double locking bridges have been the original Edge tremolo, not the newer models, which point to a more custom guitar than the “off the shelf” models. Satriani played a red 7-string JS model, seen in the “G3 Live in Tokyo” DVD from 2005. He also has a prototype 24-fret version of the JS—now called the JS-2400—which he has used with Chickenfoot. As of late he has used other prototypes featuring a Sustainiac (as mentioned above) or a JS model with three single coil-sized humbucker pickups.

In 1996, Satriani founded the G3, a concert tour intended to feature a trio of guitarists. The original lineup featured Satriani, Steve Vai, and Eric Johnson. The G3 tour has continued periodically since its inaugural version, with Satriani the only permanent member. Other guitarists who have performed in G3 include among others: Yngwie Malmsteen, John Petrucci, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Robert Fripp, Andy Timmons, Uli Jon Roth, Michael Schenker, Adrian Legg, Paul Gilbert, Steve Morse, and Steve Lukather. In 1998, Satriani recorded and released Crystal Planet, followed up with Engines of Creation, one of his more experimental works featuring the electronica genre. Two shows at the Fillmore West in San Francisco were recorded in December 2000 and released as Live in San Francisco, a two-disc live album and DVD.

Satriani regularly recorded and released evolving music, including Strange Beautiful Music in 2002 and Is There Love in Space? in 2004. In May 2005, Satriani toured India for the first time, playing concerts in Delhi, Kolkata, and Mumbai. In 2006, Satriani recorded and released Super Colossal and Satriani Live!, another two-disc live album and DVD recorded May 3, 2006, at the Grove in Anaheim, California. In 2006, Satriani signed on as an official supporter of Little Kids Rock, a nonprofit organization that provides free musical instruments and instruction to children in underserved public schools throughout the U.S. Satriani has personally delivered instruments to children in the program through a charity raffle for the organization, and like Steve Vai, sits on its board of directors as an honorary member.

On August 7, 2007, Epic/Legacy Recordings re-released Surfing with the Alien to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its release. This was a two-disc set that includes a remastered album and a DVD of a never-before-seen live show filmed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1988. Satriani’s next album Professor Satchafunkilus and the Musterion of Rock, was released on April 1, 2008. Satriani released a live DVD recording of a concert in Paris titled Live in Paris: I Just Wanna Rock and a companion two-CD set on February 2, 2010. In March 2010 Satriani participated with other guitarists in the Experience Hendrix Tribute Tour, performing music written and inspired by Jimi Hendrix.

On Dream Theater’s 2007 album Systematic Chaos, Satriani contributed spoken lyrics to the song “Repentance”. Satriani contributed a guitar solo to Jordan Rudess’ 2004 solo release Rhythm of Time. He composed much of the soundtrack for the racing video game NASCAR 06: Total Team Control while “Crowd Chant” was featured in NHL 2K10 and Madden NFL 11. He has starred in feature films, including 2006 Christopher Guest film For Your Consideration as the guitarist in the band that played for the late-night show. He appeared as himself in the film Moneyball, playing “The Star-Spangled Banner”.

On December 4, 2008, Satriani filed a copyright infringement suit against Coldplay in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. Satriani’s suit claims that the Coldplay song “Viva la Vida” includes “substantial original portions” of the Satriani song “If I Could Fly” from his 2004 album, Is There Love in Space?. The Coldplay song in question received two Grammy Awards for Song of the Year. Coldplay denied the allegation. An unspecified settlement was reached between the parties.

On May 29, 2008, Satriani was revealed to have been involved in a new hard rock band called Chickenfoot with former Van Halen members Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony, and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith. The band features Hagar on vocals, Satriani on guitar, Anthony on bass, and Smith on drums. Their eponymous debut album was released on June 5, 2009. The first single and video released was the track “Oh Yeah”, which was played on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien on June 5, 2009. Satriani received a co-writing credit on all the songs on the band’s debut album. Broken Records magazine asked Satriani about his new band, and he enthusiastically mentioned, “it was great fun” and it gives him a “kick in the music bone” to play with such great talent. He said it felt natural to step back and play more rhythm than solo guitar. Chickenfoot’s second album, Chickenfoot III, was released on September 27, 2011. Its first single was the track “Bigfoot”. In its first week of release, it charted number 9.

In 2009, he played two characters in season three of Adult Swim’s Metalocalypse.

Satriani has used many amps in the studio when recording, including the Peavey Classic. He used Marshall heads and cabinets, including live, prior to his Peavey endorsement. Recently Satriani used the JSX head through a Palmer Speaker Simulator. He has released a Class-A 5-watt tube amp called the “Mini Colossal”. In 2009, Satriani split from Peavey, and returned to using Marshall amps. Live, he has been using a Marshall JVM410JS since 2009.

In May 2010, Satriani announced he was about to enter the studio to record a solo album, and dates were released for an autumn tour. He also said that demos had been recorded for a second Chickenfoot album. Satriani released his 13th studio album, Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards, on October 5, 2010.

The JSX began life as a prototype Peavey XXX and developed into the Joe Satriani signature Peavey model. However he still used distortion pedals with the clean channel rather than the built-in overdrive channels. Satriani has used other amplifiers over the years in the studio, such as the Peavey 5150 (used to record the song ‘Crystal Planet’), Cornford, and the Mesa/Boogie Mark IIC+ (used to record the song ‘Flying in a Blue Dream’), amongst others. He has recently switched to the Marshall JVM series, having used a modified JVM 410H in his Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards tour in 2010 and with Chickenfoot in 2010 and 2011.

These modified JVM Marshall amps were prototypes for a signature amp that Marshall scheduled for release in 2011. They replaced the reverb with noise gates that eliminate lag when switching channels. The clean channel was replaced by the clean channel of a 6100 LM model, which Satriani likes as an option to use distortion pedals with. The orange od channel and the modern red overdrive channel have been better matched with each other as Satriani claims to prefer the organic overdrive of the JVM over pedals. The red overdrive channel was modified for a beefy rock rather than a nu metal sound. The effect loop has been simplified to be serial only.

Satriani released the DVD/Blu-ray of his three-dimensional concert film Satchurated: Live in Montreal on April 24, 2012, after its limited showing in theaters. The film was shot in December 2010 in Montreal and was directed by award-winning filmmakers François and Pierre Lamoureux. Satchurated 3D is the first Blu-ray concert film available with Dolby TrueHD 7.1.

On May 7, 2013 Satriani released his 14th studio album, titled Unstoppable Momentum. A career retrospective box set titled Joe Satriani: The Complete Studio Recordings, which contains remastered editions of every studio album from Not of This Earth to Unstoppable Momentum, was released on April 22, 2014. A book titled Strange Beautiful Music: A Memoir was also released to coincide with the release of the box set.

In August 2014, Satriani participated in the G4 Experience—a week-long guitar camp—with fellow guitarists Paul Gilbert and Andy Timmons, and keyboardist Mike Keneally.

In February 2015, the first dates were announced for the Shockwave World Tour, in support of Satriani’s 15th studio album, slated for release in July. Shockwave Supernova was released on July 24, 2015. The album was conceived after Satriani found himself playing guitar with his teeth a lot during the Unstoppable Momentum tour, and had a daydream about an alter ego, “Shockwave Supernova”, making him do it.

On September 16, 2017, Satriani teased his upcoming 16th studio album, What Happens Next, through social media. The album was released on January 12, 2018. He collaborated with former Deep Purple bassist Glenn Hughes and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, two Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members. In April 2020, he released the new LP Shapeshifting.