Side-by-side distribution
Application Security
$190,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 55.1%
- Live roles
- 316
Staff Engineer
$220,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 54.1%
- Live roles
- 4,834
Highest-paying jobs
Staff+ Application Security Engineer - M&A
Staff+ Application Security Engineer
Senior Security Engineer, Product AppSec
Product & Application Security Engineer
Principal Software Engineer II - Product Security
Security Engineer, Application Security
Principal Security Software Engineer, Application Security
Senior Configuration Engineer, Product AppSec
Security Engineer, Product
Security Engineer, Product and Device Security
Highest-paying jobs
Senior Staff Full Stack Engineer ($500k - $1.5m salary)
Senior Staff Backend Engineer ($500k - $1.5m salary)
Senior Staff Frontend Engineer ($500k - $1.5m salary)
Senior Staff React Native Engineer ($500k - 1.5m salary)
Staff Software Engineer (Backend)
Senior/Staff Backend Engineer, Applied AI
Senior/Staff Full Stack Engineer, Applied AI
Research Engineer (Senior Staff+), Safeguards Labs
Staff Research Engineer, Discovery Team
Senior Staff+ Software Engineer, Node Infra
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Anduril Industries
|
$204,500 | 10 |
Mozilla
|
$85,751 | 5 |
|
Veeam Software
|
$315,000 | 4 |
Compass
|
$222,050 | 4 |
Harvey
|
$275,000 | 3 |
Brex
|
$216,000 | 3 |
Airwallex
|
$205,000 | 3 |
SpaceX
|
$202,500 | 3 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
|
Anduril Industries
|
$222,000 | 110 |
Databricks
|
$226,000 | 77 |
|
Anthropic
|
$405,000 | 57 |
Crusoe
|
$231,000 | 45 |
Grafana Labs
|
$147,923 | 43 |
Archer
|
$192,500 | 37 |
Aurora Innovation
|
$231,500 | 34 |
Okta
|
$206,000 | 34 |
Application Security salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| New York | $222,050 | 25 |
| San Francisco | $219,000 | 41 |
| Chicago | $213,750 | 7 |
| Boston | $209,775 | 4 |
| Seattle | $201,250 | 12 |
| Denver | $190,000 | 4 |
| Austin | $187,500 | 5 |
| Toronto | $174,644 | 6 |
| Los Angeles | $150,000 | 5 |
| London | $131,502 | 3 |
Staff Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Dublin | $257,300 | 5 |
| Seattle | $255,000 | 151 |
| San Francisco | $244,573 | 612 |
| New York | $240,000 | 467 |
| Chicago | $230,000 | 46 |
| Austin | $228,750 | 52 |
| Los Angeles | $220,000 | 63 |
| Boston | $212,500 | 97 |
| Denver | $210,500 | 45 |
| London | $206,683 | 48 |
Application Security vs Staff Engineer: which pays more?
The median for Application Security is $190,000 per year (typically $160,000–$235,000), versus $220,000 for Staff Engineer ($189,700–$250,000). That puts Staff Engineer about 16% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Application Security and Staff Engineer 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.