Side-by-side distribution
Firmware Engineer
$191,250
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 53.6%
- Live roles
- 194
Tech Lead
$185,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 34.3%
- Live roles
- 2,598
Highest-paying jobs
ASIC Firmware Engineer, Modeling
Networking Operating System Firmware Engineer
Firmware Engineer, Robotics
Firmware Engineer, RTOS, Consumer Devices
Staff Embedded Firmware Engineer
Firmware/ Embedded Systems Engineer
Firmware Engineer, Robotics and Surgery Engineering
Founding Firmware Engineer
Staff Embedded Software Engineer - Camera Firmware
Staff Firmware Engineer
Highest-paying jobs
Senior Business Development Lead - Retail Tech & Software Services
Lead Software Engineer (Backend)
Customer Engineering Lead
Technical Lead, Safety Research
Data Engineering Lead
Lead Security Engineer
Staff Engineer, Emulation Technical Lead
RISC-V AI / HPC & Agentic Software Engineering Lead
Technical Lead Manager, Data Engineering, Trust & Safety
Lead Machine Learning Inference Engineer, Advertising
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
|
Anduril Industries
|
$222,000 | 14 |
|
OpenAI
|
$345,500 | 4 |
ALSO
|
$187,500 | 4 |
CoreWeave
|
$197,500 | 3 |
Mach Industries
|
$172,500 | 3 |
ALTEN Technology USA
|
$120,000 | 3 |
42dot
|
$228,000 | 2 |
Everpure
|
$216,250 | 2 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
|
Anduril Industries
|
$170,000 | 33 |
STR
|
$198,250 | 26 |
Motional
|
$237,500 | 21 |
Accenture Federal Services
|
$197,750 | 21 |
Fluidstack
|
$275,000 | 19 |
Scout Motors
|
$176,250 | 17 |
|
OpenAI
|
$338,750 | 14 |
Relativity Space
|
$167,500 | 14 |
Firmware Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $210,458 | 14 |
| New York | $197,500 | 7 |
Tech Lead salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Austin | $266,500 | 24 |
| San Francisco | $237,500 | 141 |
| Seattle | $234,225 | 34 |
| New York | $222,000 | 100 |
| Boston | $212,500 | 51 |
| Atlanta | $190,000 | 13 |
| Denver | $183,500 | 15 |
| Los Angeles | $175,000 | 19 |
| Toronto | $167,673 | 26 |
| Chicago | $166,000 | 28 |
Firmware Engineer vs Tech Lead: which pays more?
The median for Firmware Engineer is $191,250 per year (typically $160,000–$214,625), versus $185,000 for Tech Lead ($152,625–$222,675). That puts Firmware Engineer about 3% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Firmware Engineer and Tech Lead 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.