Side-by-side distribution
Principal Engineer
$223,544
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 45.9%
- Live roles
- 1,775
Staff Engineer
$220,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 54.1%
- Live roles
- 4,834
Highest-paying jobs
Principal Software Engineer
Distinguished Engineer
Staff / Principal Data Engineer
Principal Engineer (Payments)
Principal Engineer
Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Ads Delivery
Principal Research Engineer, Model Training & Post-Training
Principal Engineer, Agentic AI Systems
Staff / Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Serving - USA
Principal Engineer, Online Systems
Highest-paying jobs
Senior Staff React Native Engineer ($500k - 1.5m salary)
Senior Staff Backend Engineer ($500k - $1.5m salary)
Senior Staff Frontend Engineer ($500k - $1.5m salary)
Senior Staff Full Stack Engineer ($500k - $1.5m salary)
Staff Software Engineer (Backend)
Senior/Staff Backend Engineer, Applied AI
Senior/Staff Full Stack Engineer, Applied AI
Staff Research Engineer, Discovery Team
Research Engineer (Senior Staff+), Safeguards Labs
Senior Staff+ Software Engineer, Node Infra
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Roblox
|
$320,145 | 42 |
| AL Astera Labs | $207,500 | 21 |
Motional
|
$285,000 | 19 |
Elastic
|
$134,329 | 18 |
| SE Sezzle | $111,000 | 16 |
Zscaler
|
$210,375 | 14 |
Anduril Industries
|
$256,000 | 13 |
Snowflake
|
$321,750 | 12 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
|
Anduril Industries
|
$222,000 | 110 |
Databricks
|
$226,000 | 77 |
|
Anthropic
|
$405,000 | 57 |
Crusoe
|
$231,000 | 45 |
Grafana Labs
|
$147,923 | 43 |
Archer
|
$192,500 | 37 |
Aurora Innovation
|
$231,500 | 34 |
Okta
|
$206,000 | 34 |
Principal Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $282,500 | 70 |
| New York | $259,000 | 57 |
| Boston | $250,000 | 45 |
| Austin | $232,000 | 10 |
| Seattle | $231,500 | 33 |
| Chicago | $228,075 | 16 |
| Los Angeles | $225,000 | 31 |
| Toronto | $210,000 | 16 |
| London | $199,724 | 16 |
| Denver | $190,000 | 17 |
Staff Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Dublin | $257,300 | 5 |
| Seattle | $255,000 | 151 |
| San Francisco | $244,573 | 612 |
| New York | $240,000 | 466 |
| Chicago | $230,000 | 46 |
| Austin | $228,750 | 52 |
| Los Angeles | $220,000 | 63 |
| Boston | $212,500 | 97 |
| Denver | $210,500 | 45 |
| London | $206,683 | 48 |
Principal Engineer vs Staff Engineer: which pays more?
The median for Principal Engineer is $223,544 per year (typically $187,500–$276,000), versus $220,000 for Staff Engineer ($189,700–$250,000). That puts Principal Engineer about 2% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Principal Engineer and Staff 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.