Side-by-side distribution
Cloud Engineer
$166,800
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 33.5%
- Live roles
- 1,012
Platform Engineer
$195,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 43.4%
- Live roles
- 4,058
Highest-paying jobs
Principal .NET Software Engineer - Cloud Payments Platform
Principal .NET Software Engineer- Cloud Payments Platform
Cloud Engineer
Software Engineer, Cloud Infrastructure
Staff + Sr. Software Engineer, Cloud Inference
Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer, Cloud Infrastructure)
Security Engineer, Cloud Infrastructure
Staff Software Engineer, Replit Cloud
Software Engineer, Cloud Agents
Senior Cloud Engineer (Chicago)
Highest-paying jobs
Platform Engineer
Senior Staff+ Software Engineer, Kubernetes Platform
Staff+ Infrastructure Engineer, Cluster Infrastructure
Software Engineer, Research Infrastructure
Senior Security Platform Engineer I
Security Platform Engineer
Principal .NET Software Engineer- Cloud Payments Platform
Principal .NET Software Engineer - Cloud Payments Platform
SOC Emulation Engineer - Hardware Emulation Infrastructure
Infrastructure Engineer
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Accenture Federal Services
|
$151,800 | 22 |
LIGHTFEATHER IO LLC
|
$130,000 | 9 |
Crusoe
|
$175,250 | 8 |
TP-Link Systems Inc.
|
$163,750 | 8 |
Anduril Industries
|
$193,000 | 7 |
Illumio
|
$198,250 | 6 |
Synergyecp
|
$180,000 | 5 |
ClickHouse
|
$174,500 | 5 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Speechify
|
$170,000 | 102 |
|
OpenAI
|
$307,500 | 32 |
Nuro
|
$200,450 | 24 |
|
Anduril Industries
|
$222,000 | 23 |
Palantir
|
$167,500 | 21 |
Coinbase
|
$219,873 | 20 |
Databricks
|
$222,325 | 19 |
Reddit
|
$244,500 | 18 |
Cloud Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Chicago | $232,750 | 4 |
| San Francisco | $225,000 | 37 |
| New York | $205,969 | 30 |
| Seattle | $193,000 | 15 |
| Austin | $192,400 | 8 |
| Atlanta | $178,825 | 4 |
| Denver | $175,000 | 5 |
| Boston | $174,000 | 8 |
| Toronto | $171,093 | 3 |
| Los Angeles | $170,000 | 15 |
Platform Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $230,000 | 405 |
| Seattle | $215,000 | 107 |
| New York | $210,000 | 320 |
| Los Angeles | $202,500 | 31 |
| Austin | $201,000 | 34 |
| Chicago | $195,000 | 18 |
| Boston | $189,500 | 70 |
| Denver | $185,000 | 31 |
| Toronto | $176,413 | 58 |
| Atlanta | $170,000 | 9 |
Cloud Engineer vs Platform Engineer: which pays more?
The median for Cloud Engineer is $166,800 per year (typically $136,500–$201,506), versus $195,000 for Platform Engineer ($167,500–$231,500). That puts Platform Engineer about 17% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Cloud Engineer and Platform 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.