Chef salary: $180K median
The median advertised Chef salary is $180K a year, and the middle half of postings offer $165K to $199K: counted from 37 open roles that publish a yearly US-dollar range: about $87 an hour or $15,000 a month. A tenth of the postings offer $225K or more. Advertised ranges, not verified pay.
Check an offer against these figuresAll Chef jobs
$180Kmedian advertised salary
$165K – $199Kmiddle half of roles
$187Kaverage advertised salary
37roles counted
Chef salary by location
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| 🇺🇸California | $185K | 17 |
| 🇺🇸United States | $180K | 36 |
Skills that pay more for Chef roles
| Skill | Median with it | Above the median | Postings |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitOps | $222K | +$42K | 9 |
| GitLab | $222K | +$42K | 9 |
| GitHub Actions | $222K | +$42K | 7 |
| Datadog | $222K | +$42K | 7 |
| Computer Vision | $222K | +$42K | 7 |
Top-paying companies
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| Anduril Industries | $222K | 7 |
| Crusoe | $220K | 3 |
| GitLab | $176K | 3 |
| JFrog | $165K | 3 |
Highest-paying open Chef roles
All Chef jobs- Client Platform EngineerOpenAI · 🇺🇸San Francisco$347K - $445KHybridGoPythonDocker
- Helix AI Engineer, Data InfrastructureFigure · 🇺🇸San Jose, CA$150K - $400KPythonPostgreSQLTerraform
- Senior Staff Automation EngineerCrusoe · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA - US$250K - $300KLead and abovePythonPostgreSQLDocker
- Senior Software Engineer, AI PlatformAnduril Industries · 🇺🇸Washington, District of Columbia, United States$191K - $254KSeniorRustPythonC++
- Senior Software Engineer, AI PlatformAnduril Industries · 🇺🇸Costa Mesa, California, United States$191K - $254KSeniorRustPythonC++
- Staff/Senior Software Engineer - Cloud Platform EngineeringHarness · 🇺🇸U.S. (Remote)$200K - $250KRemoteLead and aboveGoPythonTerraform
- Staff Software Engineer, StorageCrusoe · 🇺🇸Sunnyvale, CA - US$195K - $245KLead and aboveRustGoJava
- Senior Software Engineer, Server Fleet InfrastructureCoreWeave · 🇺🇸Livingston, NJ / New York, NY / Sunnyvale, CA / Bellevue, WA$139K - $242KSeniorGoLinuxCI/CD
- Senior Professional Services Engineer - PubSec - DC MetroGitLab · 🇺🇸Remote, United States$138K - $230KRemoteSeniorTerraformAnsibleSecurity clearance
- Forward Deployed Engineer - InfrastructureThought Machine · 🇺🇸United States, New York, New York City$140K - $220KHybridGoPythonJava
- Senior Engineer - Network Management PlatformFastly · 🇺🇸Denver, CO; New York City, NY; San Francisco, CA$181K - $217KSeniorPythonSQLDocker
- Sr. IT Systems Engineer, DevOpsSpaceX · 🇺🇸Hawthorne, CA$155K - $215KSeniorGoPythonDocker
- Migration Engineer - GitLab DedicatedGitLab · 🇺🇸Remote, United States$126K - $214KRemoteGoPythonRuby
- Senior Systems EngineerChime · 🇺🇸Chicago, IL, USA; New York, NY, USA; San Francisco, CA, USA$152K - $210KSeniorGoPythonSwift
- Senior Software Engineer (Ruby/Full-Stack) - HybridHealthie · 🇺🇸NYC or LA$185K - $205KSeniorTypeScriptReactRuby
- Senior Platform EngineerGemini · 🇺🇸New York, New York; Miami, Florida; Remote (USA)$140K - $200KRemoteSeniorRustGoPython
- Senior Software Engineer - Data InfrastructureBackblaze · 🇺🇸Remote - US$175K - $200KRemoteSeniorRustGoJava
- Software Engineer - Platform Observability and IntelligenceFastly · 🇺🇸New York City, NY; San Francisco, CA$155K - $186KRustGoReact
- Client Platform EngineerReliable Robotics · 🇺🇸Mountain View, CA$125K - $185KPythonDockerGCP
- Senior Professional Services DevOps EngineerJFrog · 🇺🇸Remote, US$150K - $180KRemoteSeniorJavaDockerGCP
Questions about Chef pay
- What is the average Chef salary?
- $187K a year on average and $180K at the median, across 37 open Chef postings at companies that state pay (November 2026). The median is the better guide: a few very high offers pull the average up.
- What is the typical range?
- The middle half of the postings offer $165K to $199K a year. A quarter offer less and a quarter offer more.
- Which companies advertise the highest Chef pay?
- Anduril Industries ($222K), Crusoe ($220K), GitLab ($176K), by the median of their open postings that state pay (three postings or more).
- Is a chef a high-paying job?
- The median Chef posting advertises $180K a year, more than the median of all 55,899 job postings with pay on Jobs Every Hour ($174K). That is 3% above the middle of the market.
- How much can you earn as a chef?
- A tenth of the postings offer $225K a year or more; the highest open Chef role advertises up to $445K. Pay rises with level: see the table by level.
- What is the Chef salary per hour and per month?
- The median of $180K a year is about $87 an hour (2,080 working hours) and $15,000 a month before tax. The middle half of postings: $79 to $96 an hour.
- Which skills pay more for Chef roles?
- Postings that ask for GitOps (+$42K, 9 postings), GitLab (+$42K, 9 postings), GitHub Actions (+$42K, 7 postings) advertise more than the $180K median of all Chef postings with pay.
- Where do these figures come from?
- From the pay ranges employers print in their own job postings, read from their careers pages every hour. The midpoint of each range is counted. These are advertised ranges for open roles, mostly in the United States and in US dollars, not what people are actually paid.
Writing about this? A sentence you can quote
The median advertised salary for Chef roles at companies is $180K a year, and the middle half of postings offer $165K to $199K. Counted from 37 open job postings that state pay, November 2026. Source: Jobs Every Hour, https://jobseveryhour.com/salaries/chef/
Free to use with the link.