Side-by-side distribution
Cloud Architect
$174,844
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 28.9%
- Live roles
- 225
Platform Engineer
$198,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 44.7%
- Live roles
- 4,102
Highest-paying jobs
Principal Technical Architect, Product Management (AWS/Azure)
Cloud DevOps Architect
Salesforce Solution Architect, Service Cloud Voice
AWS Solution Architect
AWS Technical Architect
Salesforce Solution Architect, Sales Cloud
Salesforce Solution Architect, Revenue Cloud
Cloud Architect/Technical Lead
Cloud Native Architect, Portworx - NY/NJ
Senior AWS Cloud Architect - Managed Services
Highest-paying jobs
Data Infrastructure Engineer, Pre-training
Staff+ Research Engineer, RL Data Platform
Platform Engineer
Staff Software Engineer, Kubernetes Platform
Staff Infrastructure Engineer, Cluster Infrastructure
Senior Security Platform Engineer I
Staff Software Engineer, Environments Infrastructure
Staff+ Software Engineer, Safeguards Infrastructure
Staff Software Engineer, Infrastructure (Distributed Systems)
Principal Security Engineer, Infrastructure Security
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
CHAOS Industries
|
$200,000 | 7 |
| NP NeuraFlash, Part of Accenture | $180,350 | 5 |
| CA Caylent | $208,000 | 4 |
Provectus
|
$165,000 | 4 |
|
Accenture Federal Services
|
$144,950 | 4 |
Cloudscaler
|
$174,844 | 3 |
3Cloud
|
$158,350 | 3 |
Databricks
|
$213,750 | 2 |
Speechify
Palantir
Nuro
Anduril Industries
Elastic
Coinbase
Cloud Architect salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles | $200,000 | 8 |
| London | $174,844 | 3 |
| New York | $165,000 | 10 |
| San Francisco | $165,000 | 3 |
| Boston | $165,000 | 3 |
| Chicago | $150,432 | 3 |
Platform Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $234,000 | 413 |
| Seattle | $215,500 | 126 |
| New York | $215,000 | 349 |
| Boston | $203,500 | 51 |
| Austin | $197,500 | 36 |
| Los Angeles | $190,000 | 41 |
| Toronto | $188,000 | 59 |
| Atlanta | $183,975 | 7 |
| Denver | $183,500 | 31 |
| London | $182,500 | 52 |
Cloud Architect vs Platform Engineer: which pays more?
The median for Cloud Architect is $174,844 per year (typically $165,000–$200,000), versus $198,000 for Platform Engineer ($166,888–$234,375). That puts Platform Engineer about 13% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Cloud Architect and Platform 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.