Side-by-side distribution
DevOps
$190,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 36.3%
- Live roles
- 3,678
Research Scientist
$219,375
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 53.2%
- Live roles
- 380
Highest-paying jobs
Platform Engineer
Senior Staff+ Software Engineer, Kubernetes Platform
Senior Security Platform Engineer I
Agent Platform Engineer
Software Engineer, Platform
Infrastructure and Platform Engineer, Metal
Infrastructure and Platform Development Engineer
Principal Engineer, AI Platform
Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer, Inference & Training Platform)
Senior Staff+ Software Engineer, Kubernetes Platform
Highest-paying jobs
Research Scientist, Interpretability
Research Engineer/Research Scientist, Pre-training
Research Engineer / Research Scientist - Personal AGI, Personality and Model Behavior
Research Engineer / Research Scientist -Personal AGI, Proactivity
Research Engineer / Research Scientist- Personal AGI (Post Training)
Research Engineer/Research Scientist, Personal AGI-Model Experience
Research Engineer/Research Scientist - Personal AGI, North Stars
Staff / Principal Research Scientist - USA
Research Engineer / Research Scientist, Tokens
Research Engineer / Scientist, Alignment
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 |
|---|---|---|
|
Anthropic
|
$377,500 | 12 |
|
Anduril Industries
|
$221,000 | 8 |
Astera Institute
|
$225,000 | 7 |
|
OpenAI
|
$425,000 | 6 |
Waabi
|
$212,750 | 6 |
| SA Scale AI | $243,000 | 5 |
Nuro
|
$229,900 | 5 |
World Labs
|
$300,000 | 4 |
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 |
Research Scientist salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Seattle | $291,650 | 11 |
| Boston | $275,000 | 8 |
| San Francisco | $267,500 | 67 |
| New York | $243,000 | 38 |
| Toronto | $212,000 | 8 |
| London | $203,341 | 10 |
| Los Angeles | $80,000 | 3 |
DevOps vs Research Scientist: which pays more?
The median for DevOps is $190,000 per year (typically $150,078–$225,000), versus $219,375 for Research Scientist ($176,950–$275,000). That puts Research Scientist about 15% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so DevOps and Research Scientist 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.