Container and Kubernetes Engineer salary: $200K median
The median advertised Container and Kubernetes Engineer salary is $200K a year, and the middle half of postings offer $178K to $216K: counted from 81 open roles that publish a yearly US-dollar range: about $96 an hour or $16,667 a month. A tenth of the postings offer $246K or more. Advertised ranges, not verified pay.
Check an offer against these figuresAll container and Kubernetes engineer jobs
$200Kmedian advertised salary
$178K – $216Kmiddle half of roles
$203Kaverage advertised salary
81roles counted
Container and Kubernetes Engineer salary by level
Lead roles advertise a median of $232K, 20% 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 | $178K–$220K | 22 |
| Lead and above | $232K | $216K–$286K | 16 |
| No level in the title | $200K | $170K–$200K | 43 |
Container and Kubernetes Engineer salary by location
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| 🇺🇸San Francisco Bay Area | $216K | 23 |
| 🇺🇸California | $212K | 25 |
| 🇺🇸United States | $200K | 79 |
Skills that pay more for Container and Kubernetes Engineer roles
| Skill | Median with it | Above the median | Postings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Incident response | $246K | +$46K | 9 |
| Serverless | $216K | +$16K | 9 |
| C++ | $209K | +$9K | 8 |
| High-performance computing | $206K | +$6K | 10 |
| Azure | $202K | +$2K | 14 |
Top-paying companies
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| Lambda | $368K | 3 |
| Elastic | $232K | 5 |
| Databricks | $205K | 3 |
| Captivation Software | $200K | 24 |
| Chainguard | $194K | 4 |
| CoreWeave | $178K | 5 |
| Accenture Federal Services | $156K | 3 |
| SpaceX | $142K | 5 |
| Scout Motors | $78K | 3 |
Highest-paying open Container and Kubernetes Engineer roles
All container and Kubernetes engineer jobs- Staff Software Engineer - Managed KubernetesLambda · 🇺🇸San Francisco Office (Fremont St)$314K - $465KHybridLead and abovePythonMachine LearningLinux
- Engineering Manager, Kubernetes Platform (LKS)Lambda · 🇺🇸San Francisco Office (Fremont St)$297K - $440KHybridMachine LearningKubernetesIncident response
- Principal Software Engineer - Compute (Kubernetes)Roblox · 🇺🇸San Mateo, CA, United States$345K - $399KLead and aboveKubernetesMicroservices
- Manager II, Engineering - Kubernetes PlatformPinterest · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA, US; Remote, CA, US$177K - $365KRemoteKubernetesInfrastructure as codeEKS
- Senior Principal Engineer, Docker and EcosystemDocker · 🇺🇸Seattle, WA$219K - $352KRemoteLead and aboveGCPAzureCI/CD
- Engineering Manager, Kubernetes Bare Metal InfrastructureTogether AI · 🇺🇸San Francisco$300K - $350KTerraformLinuxKubernetes
- Staff Software Engineer, Snowpark Container ServiceSnowflake · 🇺🇸US-CA-Menlo Park$236K - $339KHybridLead and aboveGoJavaC++
- Principal Java Engineer - Distributed Systems, Serverless - ElasticsearchElastic · 🇺🇸United States$160K - $304KLead and aboveJavaElasticsearchServerless
- Principal Software Engineer I - Serverless - Platform Control PlaneElastic · 🇺🇸United States$160K - $304KLead and aboveGoGCPAzure
- Senior Platform Engineer - Container ServicesAdyen · 🇺🇸San Francisco$198K - $293KSeniorGoPythonTerraform
- Senior Software Engineer, Snowpark Container ServiceSnowflake · 🇺🇸US-WA-Bellevue$200K - $288KHybridSeniorGoJavaC++
- Staff Software Engineer, Docker AI Substrate (Seattle or Palo Alto)Docker · 🇺🇸Palo Alto, CA or Seattle, WA$170K - $276KLead and aboveGoKubernetesAI
- DevOps Engineer (On-Call/Hybrid) - Linux/AWS/Docker/Terraform/Ansible/GitCaptivation Software · 🇺🇸Annapolis Junction, MD$130K - $270KPythonJavaDocker
- Software Engineer 2/3 - Java/Git/Gradle/Docker/REST/ELK/MongoDB/Ansible/Kubernetes/LinuxCaptivation Software · 🇺🇸Annapolis Junction, MD$130K - $270KTypeScriptJavaDocker
- Senior Software Engineer - Kubernetes platformCloudflare · Distributed; Hybrid$194K - $266KHybridSeniorGoTypeScriptRedis
- Staff Software Engineer, Crusoe Container RegistryCrusoe · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA - US$215K - $260KLead and aboveRustGoJava
- Principal Software Engineer, ContainersChainguard · 🇺🇸United States - Remote$229K - $258KRemoteLead and aboveGoTerraformGCP
- Staff Product Manager, Serverless WorkspacesDatabricks · 🇺🇸San Francisco, California$182K - $250KLead and aboveGCPAzureAWS
- Principal Services Solutions Architect - Cloud Native & KubernetesPure Storage · 🇺🇸Raleigh, North Carolina$148K - $243KLead and aboveLinuxKubernetesInfrastructure as code
- Senior Software Engineer, Service MeshRoblox · 🇺🇸San Mateo, CA, United States$197K - $243KSeniorRustGoC++
Questions about Container and Kubernetes Engineer pay
- What is the average Container and Kubernetes Engineer salary?
- $203K a year on average and $200K at the median, across 81 open Container and Kubernetes Engineer 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 $178K to $216K a year. A quarter offer less and a quarter offer more.
- Which companies advertise the highest Container and Kubernetes Engineer pay?
- Lambda ($368K), Elastic ($232K), Databricks ($205K), by the median of their open postings that state pay (three postings or more).
- Is a container and kubernetes engineer a high-paying job?
- The median Container and Kubernetes Engineer posting advertises $200K a year, more than the median of all 55,899 job postings with pay on Jobs Every Hour ($174K). That is 15% above the middle of the market.
- How much can you earn as a container and kubernetes engineer?
- A tenth of the postings offer $246K a year or more; the highest open Container and Kubernetes Engineer role advertises up to $465K. Pay rises with level: see the table by level.
- What is the Container and Kubernetes Engineer salary per hour and per month?
- The median of $200K a year is about $96 an hour (2,080 working hours) and $16,667 a month before tax. The middle half of postings: $86 to $104 an hour.
- Which skills pay more for Container and Kubernetes Engineer roles?
- Postings that ask for Incident response (+$46K, 9 postings), Serverless (+$16K, 9 postings), C++ (+$9K, 8 postings) advertise more than the $200K median of all Container and Kubernetes Engineer 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 Container and Kubernetes Engineer roles at companies is $200K a year, and the middle half of postings offer $178K to $216K. Counted from 81 open job postings that state pay, November 2026. Source: Jobs Every Hour, https://jobseveryhour.com/salaries/kubernetes-engineer/
Free to use with the link.