Government And Defense salary: $193K median
From 565 open roles that publish a yearly US-dollar range. Advertised ranges, not verified pay.
$193Kmedian advertised salary
$156K – $245Kmiddle half of roles
$208Kaverage advertised salary
565roles counted
Government And Defense salary by level
Lead roles advertise a median of $240K, 24% more than senior roles ($193K). The level comes from the job title; titles without a level word are counted separately.
| Level | Median salary | Middle half | Roles |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senior | $193K | $165K–$214K | 132 |
| Lead and above | $240K | $198K–$298K | 120 |
| No level in title | $178K | $142K–$228K | 312 |
Government And Defense salary by location
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| 🇺🇸San Francisco Bay Area | $220K | 47 |
| 🇺🇸Washington, DC | $216K | 190 |
| 🇺🇸Denver | $208K | 15 |
| 🇺🇸New York | $200K | 23 |
| 🇺🇸United States | $190K | 521 |
| 🇺🇸California | $189K | 121 |
| 🇺🇸Texas | $150K | 18 |
| 🇺🇸Los Angeles | $142K | 35 |
Top-paying companies
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| Serval | $375K | 3 |
| Anthropic | $352K | 20 |
| Cloudflare | $320K | 14 |
| Censys | $318K | 3 |
| Vanta | $293K | 6 |
| Sierra | $285K | 7 |
| Cohere | $280K | 7 |
| OpenAI | $273K | 17 |
| Verkada | $270K | 10 |
| Unstructured | $250K | 3 |
| Okta | $250K | 9 |
| LangChain | $242K | 3 |
| Muon Space | $227K | 4 |
| Deepgram | $219K | 4 |
| Horizon3ai | $215K | 30 |
| Databricks | $214K | 27 |
| Scale AI | $210K | 27 |
| Ramp | $205K | 6 |
| Cape | $205K | 3 |
| True Anomaly | $202K | 9 |
| Saronic | $197K | 3 |
| Pure Storage | $194K | 15 |
| Rocket Lab | $189K | 27 |
| Cursor | $188K | 8 |
| Astranis | $188K | 6 |
Highest-paying open Government And Defense roles
All government and defense jobs- Head of National Security Sales (DoW/IC)Anthropic · 🇺🇸Washington, DC$550K - $700KLead
- VP of Sales - Public SectorCohere · 🇨🇦Toronto$560K - $675KRemoteLead
- Business Development Director, US Government MarketsApex Technology · 🇺🇸Denver$175K - $600KLead
- Business Development Director, US Government MarketsApex Technology · 🇺🇸Washington D.C$175K - $600KLead
- AVP, Federal SalesSamsara · 🇺🇸Remote - US$440K - $550KRemote
- Senior Director, Business Development - National Security (TS/SCI Clearance)Rocket Lab · 🇺🇸Chantilly, VA$214K - $522KLead
- Area Vice President, Public SectorSierra · 🇺🇸US - Remote$500K - $520KRemoteLead
- Head of Sales, Defense & IntelligenceCohere · 🇨🇦Toronto$350K - $500KRemoteLead
- Staff+ Software Engineer, Public SectorAnthropic · 🇺🇸Remote-Friendly, United States; San Francisco, CA | New Y…$405K - $485KRemoteLead
- VP & GM, Public SectorMongoDB · 🇺🇸Washington DC$200K - $450KLeadGCPAzureAWS
- Account Executive, FederalRamp · 🇺🇸Washington, D.C.$375K - $450KRemote
- Senior Director, Business Development - National Security (TS/SCI Clearance)Rocket Lab · 🇺🇸Littleton, CO$196K - $448KLead
- Sales Manager, Public SectorHarvey · 🇺🇸Washington DC$400K - $440KRemote
- Director, Federal Sales, CivilianHorizon3ai · 🇺🇸Washington, DC$400K - $440KLead
- Senior Director, Global Cyber DefenseDoorDash USA · 🇺🇸United States - Remote$350K - $437KRemoteLead
- Regional Director, Forward Deployed Engineering - Public SectorCursor · 🇺🇸Washington, D.C.$350K - $400KLeadPythonTypeScriptJavaScript
- Enterprise Account Executive - Public SectorKong · 🇺🇸Washington D.C., United States$320K - $400KRemote
- Account Executive - ArmyDdn · 🇺🇸Remote - District of Columbia$350K - $400KRemote
- Account Executive, FederalServal · Remote$350K - $400KRemote
- Account Executive, SLEDServal · Remote$350K - $400KRemote
Questions about Government And Defense pay
- What is the average Government And Defense salary?
- $208K a year on average and $193K at the median, across 565 open Government And Defense postings at tech 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 $156K to $245K a year. A quarter offer less and a quarter offer more.
- Which companies advertise the highest Government And Defense pay?
- Serval ($375K), Anthropic ($352K), Cloudflare ($320K), by the median of their open postings that state pay (three postings or more).
- 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 Government And Defense roles at tech companies is $193K a year, and the middle half of postings offer $156K to $245K. Counted from 565 open job postings that state pay, November 2026. Source: Hiring Right Now, https://jobseveryhour.com/salaries/government/
Free to use with the link.