Side-by-side distribution
QA Engineer
$141,025
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 38.7%
- Live roles
- 2,168
Software Engineer
$191,500
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 44.2%
- Live roles
- 15,578
Highest-paying jobs
Senior QA Engineer
Senior QA Engineer, Platform
Autonomy & Perception Integration Engineer - Flight Test (R5441)
Senior/Staff Design for Test Engineer
Electrical Engineer, Actuator Test Infrastructure
Principal Electrical Engineer, Integration & Test
Hardware Engineer, Test
Software Engineer, Manufacturing Test Systems
Manufacturing Software Test Engineer
Manufacturing Electrical Test Engineer
Highest-paying jobs
Senior Software Engineer, Machine Learning (Audio)
Software Engineer, ML Networking
Lead Software Engineer
Senior Software Engineer
Staff Software Engineer, Node Infra
Staff Software Engineer, Kubernetes Platform
Staff Software Engineer, Code RL
Staff Software Engineer, Claude Code
Staff+ Software Engineer, Developer Productivity
Staff Software Engineer, Environments Infrastructure
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Anduril Industries
|
$150,000 | 117 |
Air Apps
|
$61,135 | 43 |
Relativity Space
|
$163,500 | 32 |
SpaceX
|
$113,750 | 25 |
Rocket Lab Corporation
|
$127,500 | 24 |
Vast
|
$160,444 | 16 |
PlayStation Global
|
$175,600 | 13 |
Astranis
|
$158,750 | 12 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
|
Anduril Industries
|
$221,000 | 292 |
|
OpenAI
|
$355,500 | 141 |
|
SpaceX
|
$142,500 | 124 |
Speechify
|
$170,000 | 102 |
Elastic
|
$109,437 | 100 |
Roblox
|
$267,950 | 99 |
Palantir
|
$167,500 | 98 |
Databricks
|
$214,700 | 95 |
QA Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Austin | $210,655 | 9 |
| Seattle | $197,000 | 11 |
| New York | $190,000 | 18 |
| San Francisco | $182,500 | 51 |
| Atlanta | $159,000 | 9 |
| Los Angeles | $151,000 | 26 |
| Denver | $140,000 | 7 |
| Boston | $130,000 | 11 |
| Toronto | $107,500 | 15 |
| London | $71,321 | 8 |
Software Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Sydney | $431,406 | 5 |
| San Francisco | $226,350 | 1,440 |
| New York | $215,000 | 1,238 |
| Seattle | $210,000 | 380 |
| London | $205,314 | 117 |
| Austin | $187,500 | 108 |
| Boston | $187,250 | 190 |
| Los Angeles | $183,150 | 166 |
| Denver | $177,500 | 103 |
| Atlanta | $175,000 | 65 |
QA Engineer vs Software Engineer: which pays more?
The median for QA Engineer is $141,025 per year (typically $114,500–$171,406), versus $191,500 for Software Engineer ($150,000–$226,000). That puts Software Engineer about 36% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so QA 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.