Side-by-side distribution
Platform Engineer
$195,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 43.4%
- Live roles
- 4,058
SRE
$177,500
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 39.5%
- Live roles
- 1,174
Highest-paying jobs
Platform Engineer
Senior Staff+ Software Engineer, Kubernetes Platform
Staff+ Infrastructure Engineer, Cluster Infrastructure
Software Engineer, Research Infrastructure
Security Platform Engineer
Senior Security Platform Engineer I
Principal .NET Software Engineer - Cloud Payments Platform
Principal .NET Software Engineer- Cloud Payments Platform
SOC Emulation Engineer - Hardware Emulation Infrastructure
Infrastructure Engineer
Highest-paying jobs
Software Engineer (Site Reliability)
Site Reliability Engineer
Senior Site Reliability Engineer
Site Reliability Engineer
Senior 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 |
|---|---|---|
Speechify
|
$170,000 | 79 |
|
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 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
SpaceX
|
$137,500 | 21 |
|
Anduril Industries
|
$193,000 | 20 |
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 |
Platform Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $230,000 | 403 |
| Seattle | $212,500 | 106 |
| New York | $210,000 | 318 |
| Austin | $202,000 | 33 |
| Los Angeles | $195,000 | 31 |
| Chicago | $195,000 | 19 |
| Boston | $190,000 | 69 |
| Denver | $185,000 | 31 |
| Atlanta | $183,975 | 7 |
| Toronto | $176,413 | 58 |
SRE salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $225,250 | 60 |
| New York | $188,000 | 58 |
| Seattle | $188,000 | 16 |
| Austin | $188,000 | 11 |
| Atlanta | $187,000 | 11 |
| Boston | $180,763 | 18 |
| Chicago | $180,000 | 21 |
| Denver | $180,000 | 7 |
| Los Angeles | $177,500 | 6 |
| Toronto | $177,000 | 19 |
Platform Engineer vs SRE: which pays more?
The median for Platform Engineer is $195,000 per year (typically $167,500–$231,500), versus $177,500 for SRE ($130,000–$209,500). That puts Platform Engineer about 10% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Platform 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.