Side-by-side distribution
DevOps
$190,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 36.3%
- Live roles
- 3,678
Principal Engineer
$223,544
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 45.9%
- Live roles
- 1,775
Highest-paying jobs
Platform Engineer
Senior Staff+ Software Engineer, Kubernetes Platform
Senior Security Platform Engineer I
Software Engineer, Platform
Agent Platform Engineer
Infrastructure and Platform Engineer, Metal
Infrastructure and Platform Development Engineer
Principal Engineer, AI Platform
Senior Staff+ Software Engineer, Kubernetes Platform
Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer, Inference & Training Platform)
Highest-paying jobs
Principal Software Engineer
Distinguished Engineer
Staff / Principal Data Engineer
Principal Engineer (Payments)
Principal Engineer
Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Ads Delivery
Principal Research Engineer, Model Training & Post-Training
Principal Engineer, Agentic AI Systems
Staff / Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Serving - USA
Principal Engineer, Online Systems
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Accenture Federal Services
|
$151,800 | 27 |
Air Apps
|
$65,184 | 22 |
Captivation Software
|
$200,000 | 21 |
Reddit
|
$244,500 | 18 |
Coinbase
|
$219,873 | 14 |
Anduril Industries
|
$222,000 | 13 |
Airwallex
|
$162,878 | 13 |
Whoop
|
$161,250 | 12 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Roblox
|
$320,145 | 42 |
| AL Astera Labs | $207,500 | 21 |
Motional
|
$285,000 | 19 |
Elastic
|
$134,329 | 18 |
| SE Sezzle | $111,000 | 16 |
Zscaler
|
$210,375 | 14 |
|
Anduril Industries
|
$256,000 | 13 |
Snowflake
|
$321,750 | 12 |
DevOps salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $225,500 | 243 |
| Seattle | $211,250 | 60 |
| New York | $210,000 | 206 |
| Los Angeles | $200,650 | 18 |
| Chicago | $195,000 | 31 |
| Austin | $193,250 | 27 |
| Denver | $185,000 | 27 |
| Boston | $182,500 | 59 |
| Toronto | $165,000 | 50 |
| Atlanta | $161,500 | 10 |
Principal Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $282,500 | 70 |
| New York | $259,000 | 57 |
| Boston | $250,000 | 45 |
| Austin | $232,000 | 10 |
| Seattle | $231,500 | 33 |
| Chicago | $228,075 | 16 |
| Los Angeles | $225,000 | 31 |
| Toronto | $210,000 | 16 |
| London | $199,724 | 16 |
| Denver | $190,000 | 17 |
DevOps vs Principal Engineer: which pays more?
The median for DevOps is $190,000 per year (typically $150,078–$225,000), versus $223,544 for Principal Engineer ($187,500–$276,000). That puts Principal Engineer about 18% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so DevOps and Principal 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.