Side-by-side distribution
Software Engineer
$174,500
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 30.4%
- Live roles
- 35,609
Tech Lead
$164,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 26%
- Live roles
- 9,193
Highest-paying jobs
Senior Software Engineer, Machine Learning (Audio)
Software Engineer, ML Networking
Lead Software Engineer
Staff Software Engineer, Kubernetes Platform
Staff Software Engineer, Node Infra
Staff+ Software Engineer, Developer Productivity
Staff Software Engineer, Claude Code
Staff Software Engineer, Code RL
Staff Software Engineer, Environments Infrastructure
Principal Software Engineer
Highest-paying jobs
Pre-training Distributed Systems Tech Lead / Manager
Engineering Team Lead
Cloud Engineering Team Lead
Lead Software Engineer
AI Solutions Engineering Delivery Lead
Technical Lead Manager - Training Runtime, Data(set) Movement
Web Platform Lead Engineer
Lead Mobile Engineer, Performance
RISC-V AI / HPC & Agentic Software Engineering Lead
Lead Software Engineer, Payment Platform
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Northrop Grumman
|
$136,000 | 336 |
Anduril Industries
|
$221,500 | 296 |
Booz Allen Hamilton
|
$142,400 | 186 |
Leidos
|
$122,275 | 160 |
|
OpenAI
|
$355,500 | 143 |
CACI
|
$139,950 | 138 |
SpaceX
|
$142,500 | 123 |
Blue Origin
|
$197,582 | 107 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
|
Northrop Grumman
|
$191,100 | 100 |
| GV GE Vernova | $122,200 | 78 |
| BO Boeing | $161,000 | 75 |
|
Leidos
|
$151,475 | 70 |
|
Booz Allen Hamilton
|
$162,000 | 48 |
|
Anduril Industries
|
$170,000 | 42 |
STR
|
$195,000 | 33 |
| SA Salesforce | $244,875 | 26 |
Software Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Sydney | $431,406 | 5 |
| San Francisco | $225,500 | 1,581 |
| New York | $212,000 | 1,424 |
| Seattle | $201,500 | 605 |
| Boston | $185,000 | 263 |
| Los Angeles | $183,150 | 229 |
| London | $180,000 | 138 |
| Austin | $175,500 | 205 |
| Atlanta | $165,725 | 160 |
| Chicago | $161,400 | 210 |
Tech Lead salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $232,350 | 171 |
| Seattle | $219,831 | 86 |
| Austin | $205,000 | 69 |
| New York | $204,250 | 218 |
| Los Angeles | $193,300 | 44 |
| Boston | $180,200 | 79 |
| Atlanta | $176,400 | 61 |
| Denver | $163,750 | 48 |
| Chicago | $161,025 | 94 |
| Berlin | $148,465 | 9 |
Software Engineer vs Tech Lead: which pays more?
The median for Software Engineer is $174,500 per year (typically $135,000–$215,000), versus $164,000 for Tech Lead ($132,000–$200,000). That puts Software Engineer about 6% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Software 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.