Side-by-side distribution
DevOps
$190,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 36.3%
- Live roles
- 3,666
Staff Engineer
$220,063
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 54.2%
- Live roles
- 4,821
Highest-paying jobs
Platform Engineer
Senior Staff+ Software Engineer, Kubernetes Platform
Senior Security Platform Engineer I
Principal .NET Software Engineer - Cloud Payments Platform
Principal .NET Software Engineer- Cloud Payments Platform
Software Engineer, Platform
Infrastructure and Platform Development Engineer
Agent Platform Engineer
Principal Engineer, AI Platform
Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer, Inference & Training Platform)
Highest-paying jobs
Senior Staff Backend Engineer ($500k - $1.5m salary)
Senior Staff Frontend Engineer ($500k - $1.5m salary)
Senior Staff Full Stack Engineer ($500k - $1.5m salary)
Senior Staff React Native Engineer ($500k - 1.5m salary)
Staff Software Engineer (Backend)
Senior/Staff Backend Engineer, Applied AI
Senior/Staff Full Stack Engineer, Applied AI
Research Engineer (Senior Staff+), Safeguards Labs
Staff Research Engineer, Discovery Team
Senior Staff+ Software Engineer, Node Infra
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Accenture Federal Services
|
$151,800 | 29 |
Air Apps
|
$65,184 | 22 |
Captivation Software
|
$200,000 | 21 |
Reddit
|
$244,500 | 18 |
Anduril Industries
|
$222,000 | 15 |
Coinbase
|
$202,483 | 15 |
Airwallex
|
$162,878 | 13 |
Roblox
|
$265,138 | 12 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
|
Anduril Industries
|
$222,000 | 111 |
Databricks
|
$226,000 | 77 |
|
Anthropic
|
$405,000 | 57 |
Crusoe
|
$231,000 | 45 |
Grafana Labs
|
$147,923 | 45 |
Aurora Innovation
|
$231,500 | 40 |
Archer
|
$192,500 | 37 |
Okta
|
$206,000 | 34 |
DevOps salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $225,500 | 251 |
| Seattle | $212,500 | 62 |
| New York | $210,000 | 209 |
| Los Angeles | $200,650 | 18 |
| Austin | $198,900 | 27 |
| Chicago | $195,000 | 31 |
| Denver | $186,000 | 26 |
| Boston | $182,500 | 59 |
| Toronto | $165,000 | 50 |
| Atlanta | $161,500 | 10 |
Staff Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Dublin | $257,300 | 5 |
| Seattle | $250,000 | 154 |
| San Francisco | $245,000 | 625 |
| New York | $240,000 | 465 |
| Austin | $228,750 | 52 |
| Chicago | $227,250 | 44 |
| Los Angeles | $221,000 | 64 |
| Denver | $210,500 | 47 |
| Boston | $210,000 | 97 |
| London | $206,683 | 47 |
DevOps vs Staff Engineer: which pays more?
The median for DevOps is $190,000 per year (typically $151,040–$225,000), versus $220,063 for Staff Engineer ($188,813–$250,000). That puts Staff Engineer about 16% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so DevOps and Staff 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.