Side-by-side distribution
Backend Engineer
$185,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 34.1%
- Live roles
- 2,598
Prompt Engineer
$186,528
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 20.8%
- Live roles
- 212
Highest-paying jobs
Senior/Staff Backend Engineer, Applied AI
Expert Backend Engineer
Software Engineer, Backend
Senior Backend Engineer, Perpetuals
Senior Staff Software Engineer, API
Staff/Principal Backend Software Engineer
Staff/Principal Backend Software Engineer
Software Engineer, API Safety
Software Engineer, API Multicloud
Backend Software Engineer, Cooperative AI (Evals)
Highest-paying jobs
Software Engineer, Tokens and Prompt Structures
Machine Learning Engineer, Speech LLM Training - San Francisco
Principal Machine Learning Engineer- LLM Fine-tuning and Optimization
Machine Learning Engineer, Inference & Serving (Speech LLM) - San Francisco
Staff Machine Learning Engineer - LLM Quantization & Deployment
Senior/Staff System Research Engineer – LLM Inference Optimization
Senior Research Engineer, LLM Training & Post-Training
Senior Machine Learning Engineer - LLM Quantization & Deployment
Intermediate/ Senior Software Engineer - Cortex LLM Training Platform
Lead ML Engineer - Advance AI (applied ML, LLM's, ML Ops)
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Affirm
|
$158,000 | 55 |
Air Apps
|
$65,555 | 33 |
|
OpenAI
|
$355,500 | 18 |
Databricks
|
$195,500 | 14 |
Grafana Labs
|
$148,144 | 12 |
Verkada
|
$225,000 | 11 |
| KA Kalepa | $219,000 | 11 |
Robinhood
|
$180,500 | 9 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| HI Honeycomb.io | $178,264 | 4 |
CACI
|
$68,675 | 4 |
|
Plaud
|
$280,000 | 2 |
| SN Snowflake | $263,375 | 2 |
|
XPENG
|
$262,500 | 2 |
Otter.ai
|
$188,750 | 2 |
Censys
|
$179,000 | 2 |
Accenture
|
$118,977 | 2 |
Backend Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $215,250 | 148 |
| New York | $205,000 | 176 |
| Seattle | $200,000 | 52 |
| Los Angeles | $196,000 | 17 |
| Boston | $191,500 | 19 |
| Denver | $167,950 | 11 |
| Austin | $160,000 | 13 |
| Chicago | $150,350 | 10 |
| Singapore | $143,718 | 6 |
| Toronto | $140,233 | 41 |
Prompt Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $228,700 | 9 |
| New York | $203,175 | 6 |
| Seattle | $195,000 | 3 |
Backend Engineer vs Prompt Engineer: which pays more?
The median for Backend Engineer is $185,000 per year (typically $140,451–$220,000), versus $186,528 for Prompt Engineer ($131,250–$231,950). That puts Prompt Engineer about 1% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Backend Engineer and Prompt 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.