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The present study aims to investigate the tribological behavior of Ni-P-W coating under dry and lubricated condition. The coating is deposited onto mild steel (AISI 1040) specimens by the electroless method using a sodium hypophosphite based alkaline bath. Coating characterization is done to investigate the effect of microstructure on its performance. The change in microhardness is observed to be quite significant after annealing the deposits at 400°C for 1h. A pin–on–disc type tribo-tester is used to investigate the tribological behavior of the coating under dry and lubricated conditions. The experimental design formulation is based on Taguchi’s orthogonal array. The design parameters considered are the applied normal load, sliding speed and sliding duration while the response parameter is wear depth. Multiple regression analysis is employed to obtain a quadratic model of the response variables with the main design parameters under considerations. A high value of coefficient of determination of 95.3% and 87.5% of wear depth is obtained under dry and lubricated conditions, respectively which indicate good correlation between experimental results and the multiple regression models. Analysis of variance at a confidence level of 95% shows that the models are statistically significant. Finally, the quadratic equations are used as objective functions to obtain the optimal combination of tribo testing parameters for minimum wear depth using genetic algorithm (GA).