Jens Hilse studied in Munich at the Richard Strauss Conservatory and at the Munich University of Music. His teachers included Peter Sadlo, Adel Shalaby, Rainer Seegers, Keiko Abe, Siegfried Fink and others.

He received his first job as a solo timpanist in 1998 at the Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern, in 2000 he switched to the Basel Symphony Orchestra and in 2004 to the Deutsches-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin in the same position.

Since then he has played with the DSO Berlin at the major festivals in Europe, such as e.g. the Salzburg Festival, the Festival in Baden Baden or the BBC Proms in London. The tour activity of the DSO Berlin regularly leads him to the large concert halls in Europe, Asia and South America. His chief conductors in recent years have been Kent Nagano, Ingo Metzmacher, Tugan Sokhiev and currently Robin Ticciati.

From 2011 to 2016, Jens Hilse was a lecturer for timpani and percussion at the Universität der Künste Berlin. During this time he taught bachelor and master students and was responsible for promoting young talent at the Julius Stern Institute of the UdK Berlin.

Since then he has been giving master classes and workshops at universities in Germany and Switzerland.