Side-by-side distribution
Frontend Engineer
$182,500
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 34%
- Live roles
- 966
Tech Lead
$185,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 28.7%
- Live roles
- 3,030
Highest-paying jobs
Site Reliability Engineer - Frontend
Staff Frontend Engineer ($400k - $500k salary)
Staff / Principal Frontend Software Engineer
Principal Software Engineer, Frontend - Design Systems
Software Engineer, Frontend
Senior Software Engineer, UI
Frontend AI Principal Engineer - Cortex Code
Staff Software Engineer, Frontend
Frontend Engineer
Principal Frontend Software Engineer, Connections
Highest-paying jobs
Pre-training Distributed Systems Tech Lead / Manager
Cloud Engineering Team Lead
Lead Software Engineer
Engineering Team Lead
RISC-V AI / HPC & Agentic Software Engineering Lead
Lead Mobile Engineer, Performance
Technical Lead Manager - Training Runtime, Data(set) Movement
Web Platform Lead Engineer
Lead Software Engineer, Payment Platform
Technical Lead Manager, Data Engineering, Trust & Safety
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Air Apps
|
$60,559 | 11 |
|
Roblox
|
$268,610 | 8 |
Harvey
|
$241,700 | 8 |
Sift Stack, Inc.
|
$192,500 | 8 |
Verkada
|
$225,000 | 6 |
|
Snowflake
|
$243,750 | 5 |
Reddit
|
$228,950 | 5 |
Sigma Computing
|
$230,000 | 4 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Anduril Industries
|
$170,000 | 42 |
Accenture Federal Services
|
$197,750 | 21 |
Fluidstack
|
$262,500 | 20 |
Scout Motors
|
$176,250 | 15 |
STR
|
$190,500 | 13 |
|
OpenAI
|
$397,750 | 12 |
| ZG Zeta Global | $190,000 | 12 |
Relativity Space
|
$167,500 | 12 |
Frontend Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Austin | $208,000 | 3 |
| San Francisco | $205,250 | 72 |
| New York | $201,150 | 64 |
| Boston | $200,000 | 9 |
| Seattle | $189,000 | 10 |
| London | $171,448 | 6 |
| Chicago | $165,000 | 3 |
| Toronto | $153,750 | 13 |
| Los Angeles | $134,531 | 6 |
| Berlin | $102,373 | 4 |
Tech Lead salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Austin | $235,500 | 30 |
| San Francisco | $235,000 | 135 |
| Seattle | $234,250 | 48 |
| New York | $224,000 | 117 |
| Boston | $219,250 | 44 |
| Los Angeles | $197,375 | 26 |
| Denver | $176,769 | 17 |
| Atlanta | $176,400 | 7 |
| Chicago | $163,000 | 26 |
| Berlin | $144,497 | 3 |
Frontend Engineer vs Tech Lead: which pays more?
The median for Frontend Engineer is $182,500 per year (typically $139,525–$220,005), versus $185,000 for Tech Lead ($150,900–$225,000). That puts Tech Lead about 1% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Frontend 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.