Side-by-side distribution
Full-Stack
$175,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 30.6%
- Live roles
- 2,765
Tech Lead
$185,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 34.3%
- Live roles
- 2,594
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
Senior Business Development Lead - Retail Tech & Software Services
Lead Software Engineer (Backend)
Customer Engineering Lead
Technical Lead, Safety Research
Lead Security Engineer
Data Engineering Lead
RISC-V AI / HPC & Agentic Software Engineering Lead
Staff Engineer, Emulation Technical Lead
Technical Lead Manager, Data Engineering, Trust & Safety
Lead Machine Learning Inference Engineer, Advertising
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 |
|---|---|---|
|
Anduril Industries
|
$170,000 | 33 |
STR
|
$197,000 | 27 |
Motional
|
$237,500 | 21 |
|
Accenture Federal Services
|
$197,750 | 21 |
Fluidstack
|
$275,000 | 19 |
Scout Motors
|
$176,250 | 16 |
Relativity Space
|
$170,000 | 15 |
|
OpenAI
|
$338,750 | 14 |
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 |
Tech Lead salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Austin | $266,500 | 24 |
| San Francisco | $238,000 | 142 |
| Seattle | $234,225 | 34 |
| New York | $224,000 | 100 |
| Boston | $212,500 | 51 |
| Atlanta | $190,000 | 13 |
| Denver | $182,000 | 16 |
| Los Angeles | $175,000 | 19 |
| Toronto | $167,673 | 24 |
| Chicago | $166,000 | 26 |
Full-Stack vs Tech Lead: which pays more?
The median for Full-Stack is $175,000 per year (typically $140,000–$210,000), versus $185,000 for Tech Lead ($152,500–$223,683). That puts Tech Lead about 6% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Full-Stack 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.