Side-by-side distribution
Backend Engineer
$187,500
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 34.2%
- Live roles
- 2,383
Principal Engineer
$215,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 44.1%
- Live roles
- 1,819
Highest-paying jobs
Senior/Staff Backend Engineer, Applied AI
Senior Backend Engineer, Exchange Infrastructure
Senior Backend Engineer, Perpetuals
Senior Backend Engineer, Markets
Senior Backend Engineer, Trust & Safety
Backend Engineer, Markets
Software Engineer, Backend
Senior Backend Engineer, Payments
Staff+ Software Engineer, Backend
Senior Staff Software Engineer, API
Highest-paying jobs
Principal Engineer - Supply Chain Planning
Principal Software Engineer
Principal Sales Systems Engineer
Staff / Principal Data Engineer
Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Ads Delivery
Principal Research Engineer, Model Training & Post-Training
Principal Engineer, Agentic AI Systems
Principal Security Engineer, Infrastructure Security
Principal Software Engineer, Infrastructure Security
Staff / Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Serving - USA
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Affirm
|
$170,500 | 34 |
Air Apps
|
$67,479 | 33 |
Grafana Labs
|
$137,917 | 26 |
|
OpenAI
|
$355,500 | 14 |
Databricks
|
$195,500 | 13 |
Verkada
|
$220,000 | 12 |
GitLab
|
$187,200 | 10 |
Satispay
|
$57,178 | 10 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Elastic
|
$128,337 | 45 |
Roblox
|
$320,145 | 38 |
| AL Astera Labs | $210,750 | 36 |
Referral Board
|
$129,783 | 20 |
| CI Clarity Innovations | $215,000 | 16 |
Zscaler
|
$213,563 | 14 |
Anduril Industries
|
$256,000 | 13 |
Rocket Lab Corporation
|
$281,000 | 12 |
Backend Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $215,000 | 160 |
| Seattle | $214,700 | 49 |
| New York | $205,258 | 165 |
| Los Angeles | $198,500 | 13 |
| Boston | $195,750 | 12 |
| Denver | $193,171 | 6 |
| Austin | $185,000 | 5 |
| Chicago | $165,000 | 3 |
| Singapore | $156,000 | 5 |
| Toronto | $142,558 | 29 |
Principal Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $276,000 | 74 |
| New York | $263,250 | 50 |
| Austin | $245,250 | 12 |
| Boston | $237,500 | 43 |
| Seattle | $231,500 | 35 |
| Chicago | $230,000 | 7 |
| Los Angeles | $225,000 | 28 |
| Atlanta | $219,375 | 9 |
| Denver | $212,500 | 22 |
| London | $180,807 | 10 |
Backend Engineer vs Principal Engineer: which pays more?
The median for Backend Engineer is $187,500 per year (typically $145,757–$225,000), versus $215,000 for Principal Engineer ($180,625–$275,000). That puts Principal Engineer about 15% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Backend Engineer and Principal 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.