Side-by-side distribution
Penetration Tester
$184,700
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 31.5%
- Live roles
- 73
Tech Lead
$185,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 34.3%
- Live roles
- 2,594
Highest-paying jobs
Offensive Security Engineer, Agent Products
Offensive Hardware Security Engineer, Platform Security
Member of Technical Staff (Offensive Security Engineer)
Principal Offensive Security Engineer
Senior Information Security Engineer, Offensive Security
Staff Offensive Security Engineer
Senior Information Security Engineer, Offensive Security
Penetration Tester
WebApp Offensive Security Software Engineer
Offensive Security Engineer
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
Staff Engineer, Emulation Technical Lead
RISC-V AI / HPC & Agentic Software Engineering Lead
Technical Lead Manager, Data Engineering, Trust & Safety
Lead Machine Learning Inference Engineer, Advertising
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| GR GRVTY | $215,000 | 2 |
|
Robinhood
|
$191,444 | 2 |
|
Accenture Federal Services
|
$174,200 | 2 |
M9 Solutions
|
$120,000 | 2 |
TP-Link Systems Inc.
|
$106,000 | 2 |
|
OpenAI
|
$418,500 | 1 |
|
Anthropic
|
$362,500 | 1 |
|
Perplexity
|
$312,500 | 1 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Anduril Industries
|
$170,000 | 33 |
STR
|
$198,250 | 26 |
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 |
Penetration Tester salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Seattle | $362,500 | 3 |
| San Francisco | $312,500 | 5 |
| New York | $236,000 | 7 |
Tech Lead salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Austin | $266,500 | 24 |
| San Francisco | $238,500 | 141 |
| Seattle | $234,225 | 34 |
| New York | $222,000 | 100 |
| Boston | $212,500 | 51 |
| Atlanta | $190,000 | 13 |
| Denver | $183,500 | 15 |
| Los Angeles | $175,000 | 19 |
| Toronto | $167,673 | 24 |
| Chicago | $166,000 | 26 |
Penetration Tester vs Tech Lead: which pays more?
The median for Penetration Tester is $184,700 per year (typically $136,250–$218,250), versus $185,000 for Tech Lead ($152,500–$223,683). That puts Tech Lead about 0% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Penetration Tester 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.