Side-by-side distribution
Network Engineer
$138,774
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 44.6%
- Live roles
- 1,923
Platform Engineer
$185,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 41.6%
- Live roles
- 6,294
Highest-paying jobs
Network Engineer
RTL Design Engineer – Interconnect & Network Datapath
Software Engineer - Network (C++)
Network Engineer - ML Infrastructure (High-Speed Interconnects)
Principal Network Sales Engineer
Principal Network Sales Engineer – Service Provider
Senior Network Engineer
Network Engineer
Network Engineer (Sunnyvale, CA)
Senior Software Engineer – Software Defined Network (SDN) and Network Observability Team - TeraWave
Highest-paying jobs
AWS Cloud Engineer (Infrastructure and Application)
Platform Engineer
Staff+ Research Engineer, RL Data Platform
Pre-training Data Infrastructure Engineer
Staff Software Engineer, Kubernetes Platform
Staff Infrastructure Engineer, Cluster Infrastructure
Staff Software Engineer, Environments Infrastructure
Staff+ Software Engineer, Safeguards Infrastructure
Staff Software Engineer, Infrastructure (Distributed Systems)
Senior Staff Software Engineer, Identity Infrastructure Engineering
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Leidos
|
$103,113 | 74 |
GDIT
|
$125,747 | 59 |
CACI
|
$134,200 | 43 |
Booz Allen Hamilton
|
$126,800 | 42 |
Northrop Grumman
|
$129,500 | 35 |
SpaceX
|
$185,000 | 28 |
Amentum
|
$138,750 | 20 |
|
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
|
$197,250 | 19 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Anduril Industries
|
$193,000 | 50 |
|
SpaceX
|
$145,000 | 41 |
|
Booz Allen Hamilton
|
$126,750 | 40 |
|
OpenAI
|
$357,750 | 38 |
Palantir
|
$167,500 | 38 |
Nuro
|
$200,450 | 32 |
|
Anthropic
|
$445,000 | 30 |
Elastic
|
$105,820 | 29 |
Network Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Seattle | $209,324 | 40 |
| San Francisco | $203,000 | 50 |
| Austin | $180,500 | 20 |
| New York | $173,455 | 49 |
| Boston | $160,375 | 18 |
| London | $159,933 | 4 |
| Los Angeles | $159,500 | 20 |
| Denver | $145,600 | 35 |
| Chicago | $140,000 | 15 |
| Atlanta | $135,500 | 9 |
Platform Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $234,500 | 485 |
| New York | $210,000 | 427 |
| Seattle | $207,500 | 200 |
| Los Angeles | $195,000 | 51 |
| Boston | $190,000 | 75 |
| London | $185,000 | 43 |
| Austin | $182,300 | 91 |
| Singapore | $166,616 | 4 |
| Chicago | $160,000 | 88 |
| Toronto | $158,166 | 96 |
Network Engineer vs Platform Engineer: which pays more?
The median for Network Engineer is $138,774 per year (typically $114,330–$176,031), versus $185,000 for Platform Engineer ($145,000–$225,000). That puts Platform Engineer about 33% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Network Engineer and Platform 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.