Side-by-side distribution
DevOps
$175,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 36.2%
- Live roles
- 5,959
SRE
$155,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 36.9%
- Live roles
- 2,081
Highest-paying jobs
Platform Engineer
Staff+ Research Engineer, RL Data Platform
Staff Software Engineer, Kubernetes Platform
Software Engineer, Platform
Data Platform Engineer
Software Engineer, Systems & Platform Applied AI
Product Engineer, Studio Platform
Software Engineer, Platform
Senior Software Engineer, Enterprise AI Platform
Fullstack Software Engineer, Agent Platform
Highest-paying jobs
Staff Software Engineer, AI Reliability Engineering
Staff Security Reliability Engineer
Staff Software Engineer, AI Reliability
Staff+ Site Reliability Engineer, Safeguards ML Infra
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
|
$126,800 | 81 |
Accenture Federal Services
|
$151,800 | 43 |
Anduril Industries
|
$222,000 | 32 |
CACI
|
$160,325 | 30 |
Leidos
|
$151,475 | 28 |
Elastic
|
$113,946 | 25 |
Coinbase
|
$202,483 | 22 |
Air Apps
|
$62,614 | 22 |
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 |
DevOps salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $228,700 | 301 |
| New York | $209,000 | 279 |
| Seattle | $201,500 | 125 |
| Boston | $185,000 | 63 |
| Los Angeles | $183,500 | 33 |
| Denver | $175,250 | 48 |
| Austin | $163,275 | 62 |
| Chicago | $160,000 | 82 |
| Atlanta | $153,300 | 34 |
| London | $150,839 | 31 |
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 |
DevOps vs SRE: which pays more?
The median for DevOps is $175,000 per year (typically $140,000–$213,125), versus $155,000 for SRE ($120,375–$195,829). That puts DevOps about 13% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so DevOps 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.