Side-by-side distribution
Principal Engineer
$168,275
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 47.7%
- Live roles
- 6,331
Software Engineer
$174,500
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 30.4%
- Live roles
- 35,609
Highest-paying jobs
Principal Engineer - Supply Chain Planning
Principal Software Engineer
Principal Sales Systems Engineer
Staff / Principal Data Engineer
Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Ads Delivery
Principal Research Engineer, Model Training & Post-Training
Principal Engineer, Agentic AI Systems
Distinguished Engineer - Servicing Tech
Principal Software Engineer, Infrastructure Security
Principal Security Engineer, Infrastructure Security
Highest-paying jobs
Senior Software Engineer, Machine Learning (Audio)
Software Engineer, ML Networking
Lead Software Engineer
Staff Software Engineer, Node Infra
Staff Software Engineer, Kubernetes Platform
Staff Software Engineer, Claude Code
Staff Software Engineer, Code RL
Staff+ Software Engineer, Developer Productivity
Staff Software Engineer, Environments Infrastructure
Principal Software Engineer
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Northrop Grumman
|
$129,500 | 1,054 |
Elastic
|
$128,337 | 44 |
Draper
|
$170,000 | 39 |
Leidos
|
$184,325 | 38 |
Roblox
|
$320,145 | 37 |
| AL Astera Labs | $210,750 | 36 |
Blue Origin
|
$219,831 | 32 |
GDIT
|
$158,500 | 32 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
|
Northrop Grumman
|
$136,000 | 336 |
Anduril Industries
|
$221,500 | 296 |
Booz Allen Hamilton
|
$142,400 | 186 |
|
Leidos
|
$122,275 | 160 |
|
OpenAI
|
$355,500 | 143 |
CACI
|
$139,950 | 138 |
SpaceX
|
$142,500 | 123 |
|
Blue Origin
|
$197,582 | 107 |
Principal Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $267,500 | 120 |
| Seattle | $257,449 | 96 |
| Austin | $225,258 | 39 |
| New York | $222,375 | 124 |
| Los Angeles | $219,916 | 52 |
| Atlanta | $216,650 | 26 |
| Boston | $215,000 | 75 |
| Chicago | $197,175 | 48 |
| Denver | $192,741 | 46 |
| Dublin | $162,261 | 3 |
Software Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Sydney | $431,406 | 5 |
| San Francisco | $225,500 | 1,581 |
| New York | $212,000 | 1,424 |
| Seattle | $201,500 | 605 |
| Boston | $185,000 | 263 |
| Los Angeles | $183,150 | 229 |
| London | $180,000 | 138 |
| Austin | $175,500 | 205 |
| Atlanta | $165,725 | 160 |
| Chicago | $161,400 | 210 |
Principal Engineer vs Software Engineer: which pays more?
The median for Principal Engineer is $168,275 per year (typically $133,200–$215,000), versus $174,500 for Software Engineer ($135,000–$215,000). That puts Software Engineer about 4% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Principal Engineer and Software 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.