Side-by-side distribution
Security Engineer
$190,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 47.4%
- Live roles
- 1,974
Staff Engineer
$220,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 54.1%
- Live roles
- 4,834
Highest-paying jobs
Cyber Security Engineer (5462)
Security Engineer
Senior AI Security Engineer II
Senior Security Platform Engineer I
Lead Security Engineer
Offensive Security Engineer, Agent Products
Principal Security Engineer, Infrastructure Security
Principal Software Engineer, Infrastructure Security
Staff+ Application Security Engineer - M&A
Staff+ Application Security Engineer
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 |
|---|---|---|
Aurora Innovation
|
$222,000 | 22 |
Anduril Industries
|
$202,000 | 20 |
Accenture Federal Services
|
$151,800 | 19 |
SpaceX
|
$142,500 | 16 |
Mozilla
|
$86,043 | 16 |
Palantir
|
$170,000 | 14 |
|
OpenAI
|
$339,000 | 13 |
|
Anthropic
|
$362,500 | 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 |
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 |
Security Engineer vs Staff Engineer: which pays more?
The median for Security Engineer is $190,000 per year (typically $153,550–$235,000), versus $220,000 for Staff Engineer ($189,700–$250,000). That puts Staff Engineer about 16% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Security 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.