Side-by-side distribution
Platform Engineer
$195,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 44.3%
- Live roles
- 4,041
Research Scientist
$219,375
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 53.1%
- Live roles
- 382
Highest-paying jobs
Platform Engineer
Senior Staff+ Software Engineer, Kubernetes Platform
Staff+ Infrastructure Engineer, Cluster Infrastructure
Software Engineer, Research Infrastructure
Senior Security Platform Engineer I
Principal .NET Software Engineer - Cloud Payments Platform
Principal .NET Software Engineer- Cloud Payments Platform
Staff+ Software Engineer, Safeguards Infrastructure
SOC Emulation Engineer - Hardware Emulation Infrastructure
Infrastructure Engineer
Highest-paying jobs
Research Engineer/Research Scientist, Pre-training
Research Scientist, Interpretability
Research Engineer / Research Scientist - Personal AGI, Personality and Model Behavior
Research Engineer / Research Scientist -Personal AGI, Proactivity
Research Engineer/Research Scientist - Personal AGI, North Stars
Research Engineer / Research Scientist- Personal AGI (Post Training)
Staff / Principal Research Scientist - USA
Research Engineer / Research Scientist, Tokens
Research Engineer / Scientist, Alignment
[Expression of Interest] Research Engineer / Scientist, Alignment - London
Speechify
Palantir
Databricks
Coinbase
Reddit
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
|
Anthropic
|
$402,500 | 11 |
Anduril Industries
|
$221,000 | 8 |
Astera Institute
|
$225,000 | 7 |
Waabi
|
$212,750 | 6 |
|
OpenAI
|
$425,000 | 5 |
| SA Scale AI | $243,000 | 5 |
Nuro
|
$229,900 | 5 |
World Labs
|
$300,000 | 4 |
Platform Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $230,000 | 417 |
| Seattle | $216,000 | 111 |
| New York | $210,000 | 325 |
| Austin | $202,500 | 40 |
| Los Angeles | $187,500 | 31 |
| Chicago | $187,500 | 21 |
| Boston | $185,000 | 64 |
| Toronto | $185,000 | 59 |
| Denver | $180,200 | 28 |
| Atlanta | $176,988 | 8 |
Research Scientist salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Boston | $275,000 | 8 |
| San Francisco | $262,500 | 67 |
| Seattle | $252,725 | 10 |
| New York | $243,000 | 37 |
| Toronto | $212,000 | 8 |
| London | $206,683 | 9 |
| Los Angeles | $125,000 | 4 |
Platform Engineer vs Research Scientist: which pays more?
The median for Platform Engineer is $195,000 per year (typically $166,525–$230,000), versus $219,375 for Research Scientist ($177,088–$275,000). That puts Research Scientist about 13% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Platform Engineer and Research Scientist 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.