Side-by-side distribution
C / C++
$193,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 31%
- Live roles
- 390
Prompt Engineer
$197,500
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 31.8%
- Live roles
- 88
Highest-paying jobs
C Developer
Software Engineer - Kernels/CUDA (C++)
Software Engineer - Training/Inference (C++)
Software Engineer - Platform Infrastructure (Rust, C++)
Software Engineer - Network (C++)
Software Engineer, C++
Principal Engine Programmer - Systems (C++)
Principal Core Systems Software Engineer - Game Engine (C++)
Staff Software Engineer, Logging (C++)
Senior Software Engineer, C++ (Market Data)
Highest-paying jobs
Machine Learning Engineer, Speech LLM Training - San Francisco
Machine Learning Engineer, Model Evaluations (Speech LLM) - San Francisco
Principal Machine Learning Engineer- LLM Fine-tuning and Optimization
Machine Learning Engineer, Inference & Serving (Speech LLM) - San Francisco
Machine Learning Engineer, LLM Evals & Observability
Machine Learning Engineer, LLM Evals & Observability
Principal LLM Inference Engineer
Staff Attack Engineer, AI/LLM
Staff ML/LLM Ops Engineer
Staff Machine Learning Engineer, CustomerLake (ML/LLM)
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Anduril Industries
|
$193,000 | 15 |
Applied Intuition
|
$170,500 | 14 |
|
Roblox
|
$218,940 | 9 |
Esri
|
$134,264 | 8 |
Stevens Capital Management LP
|
$225,000 | 5 |
|
xAI
|
$310,000 | 4 |
| FT Flow Traders | $233,750 | 4 |
|
Aurora Innovation
|
$222,000 | 3 |
Zscaler
Five9
Prompt Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $250,000 | 7 |
| New York | $197,500 | 3 |
C / C++ vs Prompt Engineer: which pays more?
The median for C / C++ is $193,000 per year (typically $158,225–$222,000), versus $197,500 for Prompt Engineer ($158,813–$241,325). That puts Prompt Engineer about 2% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so C / C++ 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.