Side-by-side distribution
Cloud Engineer
$166,800
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 33.5%
- Live roles
- 1,012
SRE
$177,500
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 39.5%
- Live roles
- 1,174
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
Software Engineer (Site Reliability)
Senior Site Reliability Engineer
Site Reliability Engineer
Senior Site Reliability Engineer
Site Reliability Engineer
Staff Software Engineer, AI Reliability Engineering
Site Reliability Engineer
Software Engineer, Reliability
Site Reliability Engineer, Frontier Systems Infrastructure
Staff Software Engineer, AI Reliability
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 |
|---|---|---|
|
Anduril Industries
|
$193,000 | 22 |
SpaceX
|
$137,500 | 21 |
MongoDB
|
$187,500 | 12 |
Okta
|
$230,500 | 11 |
Air Apps
|
$71,586 | 10 |
| SE Sezzle | $87,000 | 8 |
mthree Recruiting Portal
|
$54,750 | 8 |
Vast
|
$213,876 | 7 |
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 |
SRE salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $225,250 | 60 |
| Los Angeles | $190,000 | 5 |
| New York | $188,000 | 57 |
| Seattle | $188,000 | 16 |
| Austin | $188,000 | 11 |
| Chicago | $187,500 | 19 |
| Atlanta | $187,000 | 11 |
| Boston | $180,763 | 18 |
| Denver | $180,000 | 7 |
| Toronto | $177,000 | 19 |
Cloud Engineer vs SRE: which pays more?
The median for Cloud Engineer is $166,800 per year (typically $136,500–$201,506), versus $177,500 for SRE ($130,000–$209,500). That puts SRE about 6% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Cloud Engineer and SRE 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.