Side-by-side distribution
Platform Engineer
$198,450
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 44.6%
- Live roles
- 4,126
SRE
$175,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 41.9%
- Live roles
- 1,172
Highest-paying jobs
Data Infrastructure Engineer, Pre-training
Staff+ Research Engineer, RL Data Platform
Platform Engineer
Staff Infrastructure Engineer, Cluster Infrastructure
Staff Software Engineer, Kubernetes Platform
Senior Security Platform Engineer I
Staff Software Engineer, Environments Infrastructure
Staff+ Software Engineer, Safeguards Infrastructure
Staff Software Engineer, Infrastructure (Distributed Systems)
Principal Security Engineer, Infrastructure Security
Highest-paying jobs
Site Reliability Engineer - Frontend
Site Reliability Engineer
Software Engineer (Site Reliability)
Staff Software Engineer, AI Reliability Engineering
Staff+ Site Reliability Engineer, Safeguards ML Infra
Staff Software Engineer, AI Reliability
Forward Deployed Site Reliability Engineer
Forward Deployed Site Reliability Engineer (TS/SCI Required)
Advanced Packaging Reliability Engineer
Member of Technical Staff, Site Reliability Engineer
Speechify
Palantir
Nuro
Elastic
Coinbase
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
SpaceX
|
$150,000 | 30 |
Anduril Industries
|
$193,000 | 20 |
Okta
|
$206,250 | 18 |
| SE Sezzle | $87,000 | 15 |
MongoDB
|
$188,000 | 12 |
Air Apps
|
$70,940 | 11 |
mthree Recruiting Portal
|
$56,000 | 9 |
Vast
|
$198,996 | 8 |
Platform Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $232,250 | 422 |
| New York | $215,000 | 357 |
| Seattle | $215,000 | 125 |
| Boston | $203,000 | 52 |
| Los Angeles | $196,250 | 46 |
| Austin | $194,750 | 36 |
| Toronto | $188,000 | 59 |
| Atlanta | $183,975 | 7 |
| Denver | $183,500 | 31 |
| London | $182,500 | 52 |
SRE salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $215,500 | 69 |
| Los Angeles | $196,500 | 14 |
| New York | $190,000 | 70 |
| Chicago | $189,000 | 22 |
| Seattle | $186,500 | 14 |
| Denver | $182,500 | 8 |
| Austin | $180,750 | 12 |
| Boston | $174,525 | 16 |
| Dublin | $173,847 | 6 |
| London | $161,233 | 8 |
Platform Engineer vs SRE: which pays more?
The median for Platform Engineer is $198,450 per year (typically $166,975–$235,000), versus $175,000 for SRE ($136,500–$206,000). That puts Platform Engineer 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 SRE 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.