Side-by-side distribution
Security Engineer
$190,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 47.5%
- Live roles
- 1,984
Tech Lead
$185,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 34.3%
- Live roles
- 2,594
Highest-paying jobs
Cyber Security Engineer (5462)
Security Engineer
Senior AI Security Engineer II
Senior Security Platform Engineer I
Lead Security Engineer
Principal Software Engineer, Infrastructure Security
Principal Security Engineer, Infrastructure Security
Offensive Security Engineer, Agent Products
Staff+ Application Security Engineer
Staff+ Application Security Engineer - M&A
Highest-paying jobs
Senior Business Development Lead - Retail Tech & Software Services
Lead Software Engineer (Backend)
Customer Engineering Lead
Technical Lead, Safety Research
Lead Security Engineer
Data Engineering Lead
RISC-V AI / HPC & Agentic Software Engineering Lead
Staff Engineer, Emulation Technical Lead
Technical Lead Manager, Data Engineering, Trust & Safety
Lead Machine Learning Inference Engineer, Advertising
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Aurora Innovation
|
$222,000 | 28 |
Anduril Industries
|
$202,000 | 20 |
Accenture Federal Services
|
$151,800 | 18 |
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
|
$170,000 | 33 |
STR
|
$198,250 | 26 |
Motional
|
$237,500 | 21 |
|
Accenture Federal Services
|
$197,750 | 21 |
Fluidstack
|
$275,000 | 19 |
Scout Motors
|
$176,250 | 16 |
Relativity Space
|
$170,000 | 15 |
|
OpenAI
|
$338,750 | 14 |
Tech Lead salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Austin | $266,500 | 24 |
| San Francisco | $238,500 | 141 |
| Seattle | $234,225 | 34 |
| New York | $222,000 | 100 |
| Boston | $212,500 | 51 |
| Atlanta | $190,000 | 13 |
| Denver | $183,500 | 15 |
| Los Angeles | $175,000 | 19 |
| Toronto | $167,673 | 24 |
| Chicago | $166,000 | 26 |
Security Engineer vs Tech Lead: which pays more?
The median for Security Engineer is $190,000 per year (typically $153,138–$233,100), versus $185,000 for Tech Lead ($152,500–$223,683). That puts Security Engineer about 3% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Security Engineer and Tech Lead 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.