Side-by-side distribution
Privacy Officer
$233,079
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 40.8%
- Live roles
- 49
Staff Engineer
$220,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 54.1%
- Live roles
- 4,834
Highest-paying jobs
Associate General Counsel, Product and Privacy
Director, Corporate Counsel - Privacy
Senior Privacy & AI Counsel, San Francisco, CA (Hybrid) (963-SLS)
Associate General Counsel, Privacy & Compliance
Senior Counsel, Privacy and Compliance
Associate General Counsel, Product & Privacy
Senior Product & Privacy Counsel
Senior Privacy Counsel
Privacy Counsel
Senior Counsel, Privacy and Regulatory
Highest-paying jobs
Senior Staff Full Stack Engineer ($500k - $1.5m salary)
Senior Staff Backend Engineer ($500k - $1.5m salary)
Senior Staff Frontend Engineer ($500k - $1.5m salary)
Senior Staff React Native Engineer ($500k - 1.5m salary)
Staff Software Engineer (Backend)
Senior/Staff Backend Engineer, Applied AI
Senior/Staff Full Stack Engineer, Applied AI
Research Engineer (Senior Staff+), Safeguards Labs
Staff Research Engineer, Discovery Team
Senior Staff+ Software Engineer, Node Infra
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| SA Scale AI | $297,900 | 1 |
|
Okta
|
$285,000 | 1 |
|
Recursion
|
$280,830 | 1 |
|
Solutuslegal
|
$270,000 | 1 |
|
Neuralink
|
$253,000 | 1 |
|
Verkada
|
$245,000 | 1 |
|
Nextdoor
|
$240,000 | 1 |
|
Teleport
|
$239,000 | 1 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Anduril Industries
|
$222,000 | 110 |
Databricks
|
$226,000 | 77 |
|
Anthropic
|
$445,000 | 59 |
Crusoe
|
$231,000 | 45 |
Grafana Labs
|
$147,923 | 43 |
Archer
|
$192,500 | 37 |
Aurora Innovation
|
$231,500 | 34 |
|
Okta
|
$206,000 | 34 |
Privacy Officer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| New York | $257,240 | 4 |
| San Francisco | $233,650 | 9 |
Staff Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Dublin | $257,300 | 5 |
| Seattle | $255,000 | 151 |
| San Francisco | $245,000 | 614 |
| New York | $240,000 | 469 |
| Chicago | $230,000 | 46 |
| Austin | $228,750 | 52 |
| Los Angeles | $220,000 | 63 |
| Boston | $212,500 | 96 |
| Denver | $210,500 | 45 |
| London | $206,683 | 48 |
Privacy Officer vs Staff Engineer: which pays more?
The median for Privacy Officer is $233,079 per year (typically $202,565–$252,513), versus $220,000 for Staff Engineer ($189,700–$250,000). That puts Privacy Officer about 6% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Privacy Officer 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.