Side-by-side distribution
Engineering Manager
$190,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 42.6%
- Live roles
- 4,368
Principal Engineer
$223,544
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 45.9%
- Live roles
- 1,775
Highest-paying jobs
Senior Engineering Program Manager II - New Ventures
Business Development Manager
Business Development Manager
Business Development Manager (Japanese and English bilingual)
Engineering Manager, Research Data Platform
Engineering Manager, GPU (ML Accelerator)
Engineering Manager, Research Productivity
Senior Engineering Manager
Senior Engineering Manager, Progressive Onboarding and Funnel Optimisation
Engineering Manager, Product Engineering
Highest-paying jobs
Principal Software Engineer
Distinguished Engineer
Staff / Principal Data Engineer
Principal Engineer
Principal Engineer (Payments)
Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Ads Delivery
Principal Research Engineer, Model Training & Post-Training
Principal Engineer, Agentic AI Systems
Principal .NET Software Engineer- Cloud Payments Platform
Principal .NET Software Engineer - Cloud Payments Platform
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Databricks
|
$228,138 | 37 |
Anduril Industries
|
$193,000 | 37 |
Brex
|
$254,250 | 29 |
Atwell, LLC
|
$117,500 | 24 |
OpenAI
|
$339,000 | 22 |
|
Anthropic
|
$445,000 | 21 |
Harvey
|
$350,000 | 20 |
DoorDash USA
|
$239,400 | 19 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Roblox
|
$320,145 | 42 |
| AL Astera Labs | $207,500 | 21 |
Motional
|
$285,000 | 20 |
Elastic
|
$134,329 | 18 |
| SE Sezzle | $111,000 | 16 |
|
Anduril Industries
|
$256,000 | 13 |
Zscaler
|
$207,188 | 13 |
Snowflake
|
$321,750 | 12 |
Principal Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $282,500 | 70 |
| New York | $259,000 | 55 |
| Boston | $250,000 | 45 |
| Austin | $232,000 | 10 |
| Seattle | $231,500 | 33 |
| Chicago | $228,075 | 16 |
| Los Angeles | $225,000 | 31 |
| Toronto | $210,000 | 17 |
| London | $199,724 | 16 |
| Denver | $190,000 | 17 |
Engineering Manager vs Principal Engineer: which pays more?
The median for Engineering Manager is $190,000 per year (typically $141,791–$238,500), 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 Engineering Manager 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.