Median salary
$233,800
per year · annualized USD
Typical range
$207.2k – $286.5k
25th–75th percentile
Disclosing pay
69.4%
118 of 170 roles
Live roles
170
open right now
Salary trend
median · annualized USDSalary distribution
annualized USD · disclosed rolesHighest-paying jobs
Principal Research Engineer, Model Training & Post-Training
Principal Engineer, Agentic AI Systems
Staff / Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Serving - USA
Senior / Principal Demo Engineer
Principal / Staff Security Engineer
Principal Engineer, Data & Compute
Principal AI/ML Engineer - AdTech
Principal Software Engineer, Onboard Infrastructure
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| AL Astera Labs | $206,250 | 14 |
CHAOS Industries
|
$210,000 | 11 |
Anduril Industries
|
$256,000 | 9 |
Samsung Semiconductor
|
$285,000 | 8 |
Zscaler
|
$225,250 | 7 |
Databricks
|
$312,300 | 6 |
Relativity Space
|
$231,000 | 6 |
Epirus
|
$177,650 | 6 |
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How much do Principal Engineer roles in California pay?
The median salary for Principal Engineer roles in California is $233,800 per year. Most pay falls between $207,219 (25th percentile) and $286,500 (75th percentile), with the broader 10th–90th percentile band running from $183,500 to $324,060.
These figures are computed live from 170 active Principal Engineer roles in California on JobsRadar, of which 118 (69.4%) publish a salary range. Pay is normalized to annualized USD so roles can be compared on equal terms; the highest-paying roles listed above show their original posted currency. Numbers refresh every few hours as new roles are posted and older ones close.
Employers currently hiring well-paid Principal Engineer roles in California include Inflection AI, Inworld, Intercom, AiDASH and Inc..
Salary transparency varies by employer and region, so the disclosing share above reflects only roles that publish pay — not every open position. Use it as a directional benchmark rather than an exact offer.