Side-by-side distribution
Application Security
$190,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 55.1%
- Live roles
- 316
Research Scientist
$219,375
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 53.2%
- Live roles
- 380
Highest-paying jobs
Staff+ Application Security Engineer
Staff+ Application Security Engineer - M&A
Staff Engineer - Product Security
Senior Staff Engineer - Product Security
Product & Application Security Engineer
Senior Security Engineer, Product AppSec
Principal Software Engineer II - Product Security
Security Engineer, Application Security
Staff Engineer - Product Security
Principal Security Software Engineer, Application Security
Highest-paying jobs
Research Scientist, Interpretability
Research Engineer/Research Scientist, Pre-training
Research Engineer / Research Scientist -Personal AGI, Proactivity
Research Engineer / Research Scientist- Personal AGI (Post Training)
Research Engineer / Research Scientist - Personal AGI, Personality and Model Behavior
Research Engineer/Research Scientist - Personal AGI, North Stars
Research Engineer / Research Scientist, Tokens
Staff / Principal Research Scientist - USA
Research Engineer / Scientist, Alignment
[Expression of Interest] Research Engineer / Scientist, Alignment - London
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Anduril Industries
|
$204,500 | 8 |
Mozilla
|
$85,751 | 5 |
|
Faire
|
$422,240 | 4 |
|
Veeam Software
|
$315,000 | 4 |
Harvey
|
$275,000 | 3 |
Brex
|
$216,000 | 3 |
Airwallex
|
$205,000 | 3 |
SpaceX
|
$202,500 | 3 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
|
Anthropic
|
$402,500 | 11 |
|
Anduril Industries
|
$221,000 | 8 |
Astera Institute
|
$225,000 | 7 |
Waabi
|
$212,750 | 6 |
|
OpenAI
|
$425,000 | 5 |
| SA Scale AI | $243,000 | 5 |
Nuro
|
$229,900 | 5 |
World Labs
|
$300,000 | 4 |
Application Security salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| New York | $237,500 | 27 |
| San Francisco | $233,750 | 46 |
| Chicago | $213,750 | 7 |
| Seattle | $200,000 | 11 |
| Boston | $195,000 | 4 |
| Austin | $187,500 | 5 |
| Toronto | $185,000 | 11 |
| Denver | $177,500 | 5 |
| Los Angeles | $150,000 | 7 |
| London | $131,502 | 3 |
Research Scientist salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Boston | $275,000 | 8 |
| San Francisco | $265,000 | 66 |
| Seattle | $252,725 | 10 |
| New York | $243,000 | 37 |
| Toronto | $212,000 | 8 |
| London | $203,341 | 10 |
| Los Angeles | $80,000 | 3 |
Application Security vs Research Scientist: which pays more?
The median for Application Security is $190,000 per year (typically $160,000–$235,000), versus $219,375 for Research Scientist ($176,950–$275,000). That puts Research Scientist about 15% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Application Security and Research Scientist are compared on equal terms regardless of the currency each role was originally posted in. Only roles that publish a salary range feed the medians; numbers refresh every few hours as new roles post and older ones close, so this comparison reflects the market right now rather than a fixed survey. Use it as a directional benchmark when weighing one path against the other.