Side-by-side distribution
Full-Stack
$175,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 30.6%
- Live roles
- 2,765
Principal Engineer
$223,250
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 46.2%
- Live roles
- 1,771
Highest-paying jobs
Senior Staff Full Stack Engineer ($500k - $1.5m salary)
Senior/Staff Full Stack Engineer, Applied AI
Forward Deployed Engineer, Full-Stack
Staff Full Stack Engineer ($300k - $500k salary)
Staff Software Engineer, Fullstack
Fullstack Engineer, Assesment
Fullstack Engineer, RL Environments
Staff+ Software Engineer, Full-stack
Software Engineer, Full Stack, Tinker
Software Engineer, Full Stack
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 |
|---|---|---|
OpenAI
|
$307,500 | 17 |
Accenture Federal Services
|
$157,275 | 14 |
| TP Third-Party Job Posts | $155,000 | 14 |
Databricks
|
$208,913 | 10 |
Anduril Industries
|
$222,000 | 8 |
Silver.dev
|
$96,000 | 7 |
| GR GRVTY | $200,000 | 6 |
Benchling
|
$189,028 | 6 |
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 |
Zscaler
|
$219,375 | 15 |
Snowflake
|
$321,750 | 12 |
|
Anduril Industries
|
$256,000 | 12 |
Full-Stack salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $210,000 | 173 |
| Seattle | $210,000 | 35 |
| New York | $204,125 | 180 |
| Austin | $180,900 | 12 |
| Denver | $176,900 | 3 |
| Boston | $172,950 | 33 |
| Chicago | $165,000 | 19 |
| Los Angeles | $160,000 | 21 |
| Atlanta | $152,500 | 7 |
| London | $137,697 | 19 |
Principal Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $278,000 | 70 |
| New York | $260,000 | 60 |
| Boston | $250,000 | 45 |
| Seattle | $232,175 | 34 |
| Austin | $232,000 | 10 |
| Chicago | $228,075 | 16 |
| Los Angeles | $225,000 | 31 |
| Toronto | $205,850 | 18 |
| London | $199,724 | 16 |
| Denver | $190,000 | 17 |
Full-Stack vs Principal Engineer: which pays more?
The median for Full-Stack is $175,000 per year (typically $140,000–$210,000), versus $223,250 for Principal Engineer ($187,500–$275,639). That puts Principal Engineer about 28% 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.