Incident response salary: $210K median
The median advertised Incident response salary is $210K a year, and the middle half of postings offer $168K to $250K: counted from 1,255 open roles that publish a yearly US-dollar range: about $101 an hour or $17,500 a month. A tenth of the postings offer $302K or more. Advertised ranges, not verified pay.
Check an offer against these figuresAll Incident response jobs
$210Kmedian advertised salary
$168K – $250Kmiddle half of roles
$215Kaverage advertised salary
1,255roles counted
Incident response salary by level
Lead roles advertise a median of $241K, 20% more than senior roles ($200K). The level comes from the job title; titles without a level word are counted separately.
| Level | Median salary | Middle half | Roles |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senior | $200K | $173K–$222K | 423 |
| Lead and above | $241K | $210K–$283K | 353 |
| No level in the title | $184K | $144K–$245K | 469 |
Incident response salary by location
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| 🇺🇸San Francisco Bay Area | $238K | 433 |
| 🇺🇸California | $222K | 566 |
| 🇺🇸Seattle, WA | $212K | 101 |
| 🇺🇸United States | $210K | 1,154 |
| 🇺🇸New York, NY | $210K | 218 |
| 🇨🇦Canada | $208K | 20 |
| 🇺🇸Denver, CO | $198K | 34 |
| 🇺🇸Washington, DC | $182K | 63 |
| 🇺🇸Austin, TX | $180K | 16 |
| 🇺🇸Boston, MA | $172K | 42 |
| 🇺🇸Texas | $155K | 31 |
| 🇺🇸Los Angeles, CA | $150K | 52 |
| 🇺🇸Chicago, IL | $142K | 32 |
| 🇺🇸Dallas, TX | $141K | 16 |
Skills that pay more for Incident response roles
| Skill | Median with it | Above the median | Postings |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI agents | $225K | +$15K | 131 |
| Java | $222K | +$12K | 125 |
| LLM | $220K | +$10K | 191 |
| TypeScript | $218K | +$8K | 146 |
| Kubernetes | $216K | +$6K | 419 |
Top-paying companies
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | $381K | 30 |
| Lambda | $350K | 12 |
| Perplexity | $312K | 7 |
| River AI Inc. | $310K | 4 |
| OpenAI | $308K | 50 |
| Replit | $307K | 4 |
| GoFundMe | $304K | 3 |
| Sentry | $302K | 4 |
| Decagon | $300K | 3 |
| EarnIn | $296K | 3 |
| Figma | $291K | 4 |
| Twenty | $286K | 13 |
| Nectar Social | $275K | 3 |
| Pure Storage | $272K | 3 |
| $271K | 7 | |
| Roblox | $269K | 14 |
| Runway Ml | $265K | 3 |
| Morpho | $262K | 3 |
| Block | $262K | 12 |
| Harvey | $260K | 14 |
| $260K | 9 | |
| Affirm | $260K | 6 |
| Vercel | $260K | 3 |
| Baseten | $248K | 8 |
| Sierra | $248K | 5 |
Highest-paying open Incident response roles
All Incident response jobs- Engineering Manager, Research ProductivityAnthropic · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA | New York City, NY$405K - $850KMachine LearningIncident responseProject management
- Engineering Manager, Inference InfrastructureAnthropic · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA | New York City, NY | Seattle, WA$405K - $625KMachine LearningLLMKubernetes
- Data Engineering Manager, Growth & RevenueOpenAI · 🇺🇸San Francisco$459K - $536KPythonSQLScala
- Technical Threat Investigator, Threat Intel EngineeringOpenAI · 🇺🇸San Francisco$347K - $510KRemoteAI agentsOpenAI APIIncident response
- Vice President, Platform OperationsNetskope · 🇺🇸United States$298K - $500KLead and aboveCDNNetwork engineeringData centers
- Security - Member of Technical StaffGoodfire · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA$250K - $500KIncident responseApplication securitySSO
- Senior Manager, Detection and ResponseLambda · Bellevue Office$324K - $480KHybridSeniorMachine LearningLLMIncident response
- Staff Software Engineer - Infrastructure StorageLambda · 🇺🇸San Francisco Office (Fremont St)$314K - $465KHybridLead and aboveRustC++Machine Learning
- Engineering Director, StorageRoblox · 🇺🇸San Mateo, CA, United States$399K - $458KLead and aboveMessage queuesIncident responseStorage systems
- Senior/Staff Forward Deployed Engineer - TS/SCI (CI Poly)Twenty · 🇺🇸Fort Meade, MD$192K - $455KLead and aboveGoPythonTypeScript
- Forward Deployed Site Reliability Engineer - TS/SCI (CI Poly)Twenty · 🇺🇸Fort Meade, MD$192K - $455KPythonDockerTerraform
- Head of U.S. Derivatives Trading TechnologyOKX · 🇺🇸United States (US)$313K - $451KLead and aboveTradingIncident responseReconciliations
- Senior Staff Data EngineerCohere · 🇨🇦Toronto$275K - $450KHybridLead and aboveTerraformAirflowdbt
- Director of Engineering, Cloud PlatformAttentive · 🇺🇸New York, NY (Hybrid)$286K - $428KHybridLead and aboveSnowflakeAWSInfrastructure as code
- Director of Platform EngineeringPatreon · 🇺🇸San Francisco$340K - $425KLead and aboveGCPAWSIncident response
- Product Engineer, Personal AIRiver AI Inc. · 🇺🇸Palo Alto, CA$200K - $420KRustPythonTypeScript
- Security Lead, Product and Infrastructure (InfoSec)River AI Inc. · 🇺🇸Palo Alto, CA$200K - $420KLead and aboveDeep learningIncident responseIAM
- Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer, Security)Perplexity · 🇺🇸San Francisco$220K - $405KGoPythonTypeScript
- Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer, Enterprise Knowledge Platform)Perplexity · 🇺🇸San Francisco$220K - $405KHybridRustGoPython
- Infrastructure Engineer, Applied AIParadigm · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA$250K - $400KKubernetesAIIncident response
Questions about Incident response pay
- What is the average Incident response salary?
- $215K a year on average and $210K at the median, across 1,255 open Incident response 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 $168K to $250K a year. A quarter offer less and a quarter offer more.
- Which companies advertise the highest Incident response pay?
- Anthropic ($381K), Lambda ($350K), Perplexity ($312K), by the median of their open postings that state pay (three postings or more).
- Is an incident response a high-paying job?
- The median Incident response posting advertises $210K a year, more than the median of all 55,899 job postings with pay on Jobs Every Hour ($174K). That is 21% above the middle of the market.
- How much can you earn as an incident response?
- A tenth of the postings offer $302K a year or more; the highest open Incident response role advertises up to $850K. Pay rises with level: see the table by level.
- What is the Incident response salary per hour and per month?
- The median of $210K a year is about $101 an hour (2,080 working hours) and $17,500 a month before tax. The middle half of postings: $81 to $120 an hour.
- Which skills pay more for Incident response roles?
- Postings that ask for AI agents (+$15K, 131 postings), Java (+$12K, 125 postings), LLM (+$10K, 191 postings) advertise more than the $210K median of all Incident response postings with pay.
- What does an entry-level incident response make?
- 10 junior and intern Incident response postings state pay, with a median of $145K a year ($70 an hour).
- 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 Incident response roles at companies is $210K a year, and the middle half of postings offer $168K to $250K. Counted from 1,255 open job postings that state pay, November 2026. Source: Jobs Every Hour, https://jobseveryhour.com/salaries/incident-response/
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