Principal Engineer salaries in San Francisco.
What Principal Engineer roles in San Francisco pay, from live listings on JobsRadar.
Compare with anotherMedian salary
$265,000
per year · annualized USD
Typical range
$231.2k – $310.6k
25th–75th percentile
Disclosing pay
42.3%
71 of 168 roles
Live roles
168
open right now
Salary distribution
annualized USD · disclosed rolesHighest-paying live roles
Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Ads Delivery
Principal Engineer, Compute Platform
Principal Engineer, Online Systems
Principal Security Engineer, Infrastructure Security
Offensive Security Engineer, Agent Products
Principal Software Engineer, Infrastructure Security
Model Performance Software Engineer, Claude Code
Software Engineer, ML Infra & Distributed Systems (Staff & Principal)
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Databricks
|
$280,625 | 7 |
| LS Lila Sciences | $276,000 | 7 |
Okta
|
$231,700 | 7 |
CloudZero
|
$242,500 | 4 |
|
OpenAI
|
$418,500 | 3 |
|
Pinterest
|
$392,497 | 3 |
Armada
|
$260,550 | 3 |
| FA Fractional AI | $237,500 | 3 |
See every Principal Engineer role
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How much do Principal Engineer roles in San Francisco pay?
The median salary for Principal Engineer roles in San Francisco is $265,000 per year. Most pay falls between $231,175 (25th percentile) and $310,613 (75th percentile), with the broader 10th–90th percentile band running from $192,000 to $350,000.
These figures are computed live from 168 active Principal Engineer roles in San Francisco on JobsRadar, of which 71 (42.3%) publish a salary range. Pay is normalized to annualized USD so roles can be compared on equal terms; the highest-paying roles listed above show their original posted currency. Numbers refresh every few hours as new roles are posted and older ones close.
Employers currently hiring well-paid Principal Engineer roles in San Francisco include Pinterest, OpenAI, Anthropic and Tubi.
Salary transparency varies by employer and region, so the disclosing share above reflects only roles that publish pay — not every open position. Use it as a directional benchmark rather than an exact offer.