NIST salary: $180K median
The median advertised NIST salary is $180K a year, and the middle half of postings offer $150K to $218K: counted from 393 open roles that publish a yearly US-dollar range: about $87 an hour or $15,000 a month. A tenth of the postings offer $255K or more. Advertised ranges, not verified pay.
Check an offer against these figuresAll NIST jobs
$180Kmedian advertised salary
$150K – $218Kmiddle half of roles
$188Kaverage advertised salary
393roles counted
NIST salary by level
Lead roles advertise a median of $220K, 29% more than senior roles ($171K). The level comes from the job title; titles without a level word are counted separately.
| Level | Median salary | Middle half | Roles |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senior | $171K | $152K–$200K | 115 |
| Lead and above | $220K | $190K–$250K | 109 |
| No level in the title | $165K | $140K–$208K | 166 |
NIST salary by location
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| 🇺🇸Denver, CO | $206K | 24 |
| 🇺🇸San Francisco Bay Area | $204K | 78 |
| 🇺🇸California | $192K | 176 |
| 🇺🇸New York, NY | $190K | 43 |
| 🇺🇸Seattle, WA | $185K | 15 |
| 🇺🇸United States | $180K | 364 |
| 🇺🇸Washington, DC | $175K | 51 |
| 🇺🇸Los Angeles, CA | $162K | 29 |
| 🇺🇸Boston, MA | $150K | 17 |
| 🇺🇸Chicago, IL | $146K | 16 |
Skills that pay more for NIST roles
| Skill | Median with it | Above the median | Postings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Threat modeling | $214K | +$34K | 46 |
| Go | $212K | +$32K | 50 |
| LLM | $209K | +$29K | 50 |
| Infrastructure as code | $202K | +$22K | 83 |
| Penetration testing | $200K | +$20K | 42 |
Top-paying companies
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | $345K | 6 |
| Replit | $295K | 3 |
| Snorkel AI | $260K | 3 |
| OpenAI | $231K | 6 |
| Zania | $230K | 3 |
| Vanta | $228K | 3 |
| Pure Storage | $215K | 5 |
| Drata | $210K | 3 |
| Databricks | $208K | 5 |
| Muon Space | $206K | 4 |
| CoreWeave | $204K | 5 |
| GitLab | $203K | 3 |
| True Anomaly | $200K | 20 |
| Picogrid | $200K | 3 |
| Okta | $198K | 5 |
| Chainguard | $194K | 6 |
| Valar Atomics | $192K | 9 |
| Twitch | $186K | 3 |
| Elastic | $186K | 3 |
| Armada | $184K | 3 |
| Samsara | $182K | 5 |
| Apex Technology | $180K | 5 |
| K2 Space | $180K | 3 |
| HawkEye 360 | $178K | 3 |
| OneTrust | $175K | 4 |
Highest-paying open NIST roles
All NIST jobs- Client Platform EngineerOpenAI · 🇺🇸San Francisco$347K - $445KHybridGoPythonDocker
- Security GRC LeadMercor · 🇺🇸San Francisco$350K - $425KLead and abovePythonSQLLLM
- Platform Hardware SecurityAnthropic · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA | New York City, NY | Seattle, WA$320K - $405KRustCVulnerability management
- Security Data EngineerAnthropic · 🇺🇸Remote-Friendly (Travel Required) | San Francisco, CA$320K - $405KRemoteSQLAI agentsData quality
- Engineering Manager, Security (Cloud, Infrastructure & Application Security)Replit · 🇺🇸Foster City, CA$250K - $387KHybridGoPythonTypeScript
- Chief Information Security OfficerAnduril Industries · 🇺🇸Costa Mesa, California, United States$252K - $382KLead and aboveCI/CDComputer VisionSecurity clearance
- Director, Applied AIZoomInfo · 🇺🇸Bethesda, Maryland, United States; Remote-US-MA; Remote-U…$233K - $366KRemoteLead and aboveSQLMachine LearningLLM
- Security Engineer - Incident ResponseReplit · 🇺🇸Foster City, CA$230K - $360KHybridGoPythonGCP
- Head of Indirect Strategic Supply Chain & ProcurementAnduril Industries · 🇺🇸Costa Mesa, California, United States$260K - $345KLead and aboveAWSSAPNetSuite
- Principal Mission Cloud EngineerTrue Anomaly · 🇺🇸Denver, CO; Long Beach, CA$230K - $340KLead and aboveAzureCI/CDAWS
- Senior Engineering Manager, Fortary PlatformAva Labs · Remote (Global)$225K - $338KRemote, anywhereSeniorCI/CDKubernetesInfrastructure as code
- Principal Embedded Systems Security EngineerTrue Anomaly · 🇺🇸Denver, CO; Long Beach, CA$225K - $330KLead and aboveC++LinuxEmbedded C
- Security Engineer, ProductRogo · 🇺🇸New York City$270K - $330KRustGoPython
- Director of Product Management, SecurityPure Storage · 🇺🇸Santa Clara, California$269K - $329KLead and aboveIAMZero trustNIST
- Senior AI Governance CounselAdyen · 🇺🇸New York$250K - $325KSeniorLLMAICIPP
- Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)Insurity · 🇺🇸Remote - US$216K - $325KRemoteLead and aboveMachine LearningLLMCI/CD
- Research Scientist, AI Safety and AlignmentScale AI · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA$259K - $324KMachine LearningAI agentsThreat modeling
- Principal Engineer CryptographyGoDaddy · 🇺🇸United States$166K - $323KLead and aboveGoPythonJava
- Principal Product Security EngineerCribl · 🇺🇸Remote - United States$265K - $320KRemoteLead and aboveGoPythonTypeScript
- Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)CAIS · 🇺🇸New York City$270K - $320KLead and aboveMachine LearningCISSPCISM
Questions about NIST pay
- What is the average NIST salary?
- $188K a year on average and $180K at the median, across 393 open NIST 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 $150K to $218K a year. A quarter offer less and a quarter offer more.
- Which companies advertise the highest NIST pay?
- Anthropic ($345K), Replit ($295K), Snorkel AI ($260K), by the median of their open postings that state pay (three postings or more).
- Is a nist a high-paying job?
- The median NIST 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 nist?
- A tenth of the postings offer $255K a year or more; the highest open NIST role advertises up to $445K. Pay rises with level: see the table by level.
- What is the NIST 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: $72 to $105 an hour.
- Which skills pay more for NIST roles?
- Postings that ask for Threat modeling (+$34K, 46 postings), Go (+$32K, 50 postings), LLM (+$29K, 50 postings) advertise more than the $180K median of all NIST 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 NIST roles at companies is $180K a year, and the middle half of postings offer $150K to $218K. Counted from 393 open job postings that state pay, November 2026. Source: Jobs Every Hour, https://jobseveryhour.com/salaries/nist/
Free to use with the link.