Side-by-side distribution
Platform Engineer
$185,400
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 41.8%
- Live roles
- 6,294
System Administrator
$116,052
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 50.8%
- Live roles
- 1,207
Highest-paying jobs
AWS Cloud Engineer (Infrastructure and Application)
Platform Engineer
Staff+ Research Engineer, RL Data Platform
Pre-training Data Infrastructure Engineer
Flutter Engineer - Platform
Platform Engineer
Cloud Platform Engineer
Staff Software Engineer, Kubernetes Platform
Staff Infrastructure Engineer, Cluster Infrastructure
Staff Software Engineer, Environments Infrastructure
Highest-paying jobs
Senior Cyber Systems Administrator
Federal HPC Linux System Administrator, (Clearance required TS/SCI with Poly) On-Site, Maryland
Systems Administrator 3
Oracle Linux Systems Administrator - TS/SCI with Polygraph
Windows Systems Administrator - TS/SCI w/Polygraph
Systems Administrator 3 (On-Call) - Linux/Bash/Python/STE/STN/Docker/Kubernetes
Systems Administrator 2 - Linux/CI/CD/Ansible/Terraform/DevOps
System Administrator, Senior
Linux Systems Administrator
Systems Administrator - Level 5 Active Polygraph Required
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Anduril Industries
|
$193,000 | 50 |
SpaceX
|
$145,000 | 41 |
Booz Allen Hamilton
|
$126,750 | 40 |
Palantir
|
$167,500 | 38 |
OpenAI
|
$360,000 | 37 |
Nuro
|
$200,450 | 32 |
|
Anthropic
|
$445,000 | 30 |
Elastic
|
$105,820 | 29 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
|
GDIT
|
$115,000 | 60 |
Leidos
|
$129,575 | 50 |
|
CACI
|
$116,650 | 41 |
|
Booz Allen Hamilton
|
$126,800 | 24 |
Amentum
|
$142,500 | 22 |
|
Northrop Grumman
|
$117,700 | 21 |
Saalex
|
$92,500 | 20 |
| PA Parsons | $142,300 | 17 |
Platform Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $234,500 | 487 |
| New York | $210,000 | 427 |
| Seattle | $210,000 | 204 |
| Los Angeles | $196,000 | 53 |
| London | $193,292 | 46 |
| Boston | $190,000 | 76 |
| Austin | $182,300 | 91 |
| Singapore | $166,616 | 4 |
| Chicago | $160,000 | 87 |
| Toronto | $157,500 | 95 |
System Administrator salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Denver | $152,500 | 3 |
| Seattle | $139,410 | 6 |
| San Francisco | $130,000 | 8 |
| Boston | $124,252 | 5 |
| Los Angeles | $112,500 | 5 |
| Atlanta | $102,860 | 3 |
| Chicago | $102,500 | 11 |
| New York | $97,500 | 13 |
| Austin | $95,000 | 3 |
| Toronto | $89,065 | 6 |
Platform Engineer vs System Administrator: which pays more?
The median for Platform Engineer is $185,400 per year (typically $145,000–$225,000), versus $116,052 for System Administrator ($94,800–$139,260). That puts Platform Engineer about 60% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Platform Engineer and System Administrator 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.