Side-by-side distribution
Full-Stack
$175,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 30.4%
- Live roles
- 2,796
Principal Engineer
$215,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 44.1%
- Live roles
- 1,819
Highest-paying jobs
Senior Staff Full Stack Engineer ($500k - $1.5m salary)
Senior/Staff Full Stack Engineer, Applied AI
Senior AI Fullstack Engineer
Staff Full Stack Engineer ($400k - $500k salary)
Fullstack Software Engineer, Agent Platform
Founding Engineer - Full Stack
Full Stack Engineer, Fleet Scheduling
Full-Stack Engineer, ChatGPT Education & Learning
Staff+ Software Engineer, Full-stack
Full Stack Software Engineer, Cybersecurity Products
Highest-paying jobs
Principal Engineer - Supply Chain Planning
Principal Software Engineer
Principal Sales Systems Engineer
Staff / Principal Data Engineer
Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Ads Delivery
Principal Research Engineer, Model Training & Post-Training
Principal Engineer, Agentic AI Systems
Principal Security Engineer, Infrastructure Security
Principal Software Engineer, Infrastructure Security
Staff / Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Serving - USA
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
|
OpenAI
|
$330,000 | 20 |
Accenture Federal Services
|
$131,425 | 18 |
SpaceX
|
$142,500 | 13 |
Databricks
|
$195,500 | 11 |
Anduril Industries
|
$222,000 | 9 |
Affirm
|
$194,766 | 9 |
| GR GRVTY | $200,000 | 8 |
Sift Stack, Inc.
|
$192,500 | 8 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Elastic
|
$128,337 | 45 |
Roblox
|
$320,145 | 38 |
| AL Astera Labs | $210,750 | 36 |
Referral Board
|
$129,783 | 20 |
| CI Clarity Innovations | $215,000 | 16 |
Zscaler
|
$213,563 | 14 |
|
Anduril Industries
|
$256,000 | 13 |
Rocket Lab Corporation
|
$281,000 | 12 |
Full-Stack salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $215,000 | 159 |
| Seattle | $210,000 | 32 |
| New York | $200,000 | 163 |
| Boston | $195,000 | 16 |
| Denver | $188,000 | 9 |
| Chicago | $185,000 | 14 |
| Los Angeles | $175,000 | 21 |
| London | $154,508 | 12 |
| Austin | $147,500 | 10 |
| Toronto | $137,065 | 41 |
Principal Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $276,000 | 74 |
| New York | $263,250 | 50 |
| Austin | $245,250 | 12 |
| Boston | $237,500 | 43 |
| Seattle | $231,500 | 35 |
| Chicago | $230,000 | 7 |
| Los Angeles | $225,000 | 28 |
| Atlanta | $219,375 | 9 |
| Denver | $212,500 | 22 |
| London | $180,807 | 10 |
Full-Stack vs Principal Engineer: which pays more?
The median for Full-Stack is $175,000 per year (typically $140,000–$207,500), versus $215,000 for Principal Engineer ($180,625–$275,000). That puts Principal Engineer about 23% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Full-Stack 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.