Side-by-side distribution
Cloud Architect
$175,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 29.9%
- Live roles
- 559
Platform Engineer
$185,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 41.6%
- Live roles
- 6,293
Highest-paying jobs
Principal Technical Architect, Product Management (AWS/Azure)
Cloud Architect
Senior Solutions Architect, Contact Center, AWS Connect
Technical Cloud Architect (Virtualization & Cloud Infrastructure)
Salesforce Data Cloud & AI Architect Senior Manager
Principal, Cloud Platform Architect
Staff Cloud and AI Solutions Architect
Principal Cloud Architect
AI Value Architect - Private Cloud AI
Senior Cloud Security Architect
Highest-paying jobs
AWS Cloud Engineer (Infrastructure and Application)
Platform Engineer
Pre-training Data Infrastructure Engineer
Staff+ Research Engineer, RL Data Platform
Staff Software Engineer, Kubernetes Platform
Staff Infrastructure Engineer, Cluster Infrastructure
Staff Software Engineer, Environments Infrastructure
Staff+ Software Engineer, Safeguards Infrastructure
Staff Software Engineer, Infrastructure (Distributed Systems)
Senior Staff Software Engineer, Identity Infrastructure Engineering
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Booz Allen Hamilton
|
$142,400 | 26 |
|
Accenture
|
$180,350 | 10 |
Accenture Federal Services
|
$157,750 | 8 |
| NP NeuraFlash, Part of Accenture | $180,350 | 5 |
Provectus
|
$250,000 | 4 |
GDIT
|
$171,033 | 4 |
McKesson
|
$142,450 | 4 |
| CA Caylent | $208,000 | 3 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Anduril Industries
|
$193,000 | 50 |
SpaceX
|
$145,000 | 41 |
|
Booz Allen Hamilton
|
$126,750 | 40 |
|
OpenAI
|
$357,750 | 38 |
Palantir
|
$167,500 | 38 |
Nuro
|
$200,450 | 32 |
|
Anthropic
|
$445,000 | 29 |
Elastic
|
$105,820 | 29 |
Cloud Architect salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| New York | $187,525 | 16 |
| San Francisco | $180,350 | 10 |
| Los Angeles | $180,350 | 8 |
| Seattle | $180,350 | 10 |
| Austin | $180,350 | 9 |
| Chicago | $180,350 | 14 |
| Boston | $180,350 | 10 |
| Denver | $180,350 | 7 |
| Atlanta | $180,350 | 12 |
| London | $174,844 | 3 |
Platform Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $234,500 | 483 |
| New York | $210,000 | 427 |
| Seattle | $210,000 | 198 |
| Los Angeles | $195,000 | 51 |
| Boston | $187,500 | 74 |
| London | $185,000 | 43 |
| Austin | $182,300 | 91 |
| Singapore | $166,616 | 4 |
| Chicago | $160,000 | 88 |
| Toronto | $158,166 | 96 |
Cloud Architect vs Platform Engineer: which pays more?
The median for Cloud Architect is $175,000 per year (typically $147,200–$194,850), versus $185,000 for Platform Engineer ($145,000–$225,000). That puts Platform Engineer about 6% 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.