Side-by-side distribution
Cloud Engineer
$154,625
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 33.6%
- Live roles
- 2,366
SRE
$155,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 37%
- Live roles
- 2,082
Highest-paying jobs
AWS Cloud Engineer (Infrastructure and Application)
Software Engineer, Cloud Infrastructure
Staff + Sr. Software Engineer, Cloud Inference
Staff + Sr. Software Engineer, Cloud Inference Launch Engineering
Software Engineer, Cloud Agents
Software Engineer, Cloud Computer
Senior Principal Presales Systems Engineer, Cloud and AI Networking
Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer, Cloud Infrastructure)
Security Engineer, Cloud Infrastructure
Senior Software Engineer, Cloud Infrastructure
Highest-paying jobs
Staff Software Engineer, AI Reliability Engineering
Staff Security Reliability Engineer
Staff+ Site Reliability Engineer, Safeguards ML Infra
Staff Software Engineer, AI Reliability
Forward Deployed Site Reliability Engineer - TS/SCI (CI Poly)
Forward Deployed Site Reliability Engineer - TS/SCI (Full Scope Poly)
Data Center Engineer, Reliability & Infrastructure Management – Compute Supply
Member of Technical Staff, Production Site Reliability Engineer
Software Engineer, Site Reliability (SRE)
Principal Site Reliability Engineer, Platform Engineering: Dedicated
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Booz Allen Hamilton
|
$142,400 | 59 |
Accenture Federal Services
|
$152,425 | 48 |
CACI
|
$168,100 | 30 |
GDIT
|
$148,000 | 21 |
Crusoe
|
$158,750 | 16 |
Leidos
|
$151,475 | 16 |
Northrop Grumman
|
$126,900 | 13 |
BMO
|
$141,450 | 10 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
SpaceX
|
$145,000 | 45 |
Anduril Industries
|
$193,000 | 19 |
| SE Sezzle | $87,000 | 15 |
Okta
|
$206,500 | 14 |
|
Northrop Grumman
|
$121,700 | 12 |
Air Apps
|
$68,929 | 11 |
Vast
|
$166,000 | 10 |
Cisco
|
$206,450 | 9 |
Cloud Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $212,000 | 49 |
| Seattle | $202,000 | 21 |
| Los Angeles | $175,000 | 21 |
| New York | $170,000 | 55 |
| Chicago | $167,500 | 22 |
| Boston | $165,000 | 25 |
| Austin | $162,050 | 20 |
| Berlin | $161,920 | 3 |
| Denver | $160,000 | 15 |
| London | $151,307 | 3 |
SRE salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $211,878 | 86 |
| New York | $190,000 | 71 |
| Los Angeles | $189,081 | 22 |
| Seattle | $188,081 | 22 |
| Austin | $187,000 | 21 |
| Chicago | $180,000 | 37 |
| Denver | $168,850 | 12 |
| Boston | $165,500 | 21 |
| Atlanta | $151,000 | 7 |
| Dublin | $133,309 | 7 |
Cloud Engineer vs SRE: which pays more?
The median for Cloud Engineer is $154,625 per year (typically $126,750–$184,963), versus $155,000 for SRE ($120,000–$195,800). That puts SRE about 0% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Cloud Engineer and SRE 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.