Side-by-side distribution
Backend Engineer
$187,500
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 34.2%
- Live roles
- 2,383
Tech Lead
$185,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 28.7%
- Live roles
- 3,030
Highest-paying jobs
Senior/Staff Backend Engineer, Applied AI
Backend Engineer, Markets
Senior Backend Engineer, Payments
Senior Backend Engineer, Markets
Senior Backend Engineer, Exchange Infrastructure
Senior Backend Engineer, Trust & Safety
Software Engineer, Backend
Senior Backend Engineer, Perpetuals
Staff+ Software Engineer, Backend
Senior Staff Software Engineer, API
Highest-paying jobs
Pre-training Distributed Systems Tech Lead / Manager
Cloud Engineering Team Lead
Lead Software Engineer
Engineering Team Lead
RISC-V AI / HPC & Agentic Software Engineering Lead
Lead Mobile Engineer, Performance
Technical Lead Manager - Training Runtime, Data(set) Movement
Web Platform Lead Engineer
Lead Software Engineer, Payment Platform
Technical Lead Manager, Data Engineering, Trust & Safety
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 |
|---|---|---|
Anduril Industries
|
$170,000 | 42 |
Accenture Federal Services
|
$197,750 | 21 |
Fluidstack
|
$262,500 | 20 |
Scout Motors
|
$176,250 | 15 |
STR
|
$190,500 | 13 |
|
OpenAI
|
$397,750 | 12 |
| ZG Zeta Global | $190,000 | 12 |
Relativity Space
|
$167,500 | 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 |
Tech Lead salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Austin | $235,500 | 30 |
| San Francisco | $235,000 | 135 |
| Seattle | $234,250 | 48 |
| New York | $224,000 | 117 |
| Boston | $219,250 | 44 |
| Los Angeles | $197,375 | 26 |
| Denver | $176,769 | 17 |
| Atlanta | $176,400 | 7 |
| Chicago | $163,000 | 26 |
| Berlin | $144,497 | 3 |
Backend Engineer vs Tech Lead: which pays more?
The median for Backend Engineer is $187,500 per year (typically $145,757–$225,000), versus $185,000 for Tech Lead ($150,900–$225,000). That puts Backend 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 Tech Lead 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.