Observability salary: $208K median
The median advertised Observability salary is $208K a year, and the middle half of postings offer $178K to $241K: counted from 772 open roles that publish a yearly US-dollar range: about $100 an hour or $17,292 a month. A tenth of the postings offer $292K or more. Advertised ranges, not verified pay.
Check an offer against these figuresAll Observability jobs
$208Kmedian advertised salary
$178K – $241Kmiddle half of roles
$214Kaverage advertised salary
772roles counted
Observability salary by level
Lead roles advertise a median of $237K, 21% more than senior roles ($196K). The level comes from the job title; titles without a level word are counted separately.
| Level | Median salary | Middle half | Roles |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senior | $196K | $178K–$220K | 307 |
| Lead and above | $237K | $211K–$273K | 201 |
| No level in the title | $190K | $152K–$244K | 262 |
Observability salary by location
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| 🇺🇸San Francisco Bay Area | $230K | 262 |
| 🇺🇸California | $220K | 325 |
| 🇺🇸New York, NY | $211K | 159 |
| 🇺🇸Washington, DC | $211K | 19 |
| 🇺🇸United States | $208K | 721 |
| 🇺🇸Seattle, WA | $204K | 61 |
| 🇺🇸Boston, MA | $193K | 27 |
| 🇺🇸Denver, CO | $180K | 17 |
| 🇺🇸Los Angeles, CA | $173K | 20 |
| 🇺🇸Chicago, IL | $160K | 19 |
Skills that pay more for Observability roles
| Skill | Median with it | Above the median | Postings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Machine Learning | $228K | +$20K | 88 |
| LLM | $226K | +$19K | 174 |
| AI agents | $225K | +$18K | 97 |
| AI | $218K | +$11K | 77 |
| Rust | $212K | +$5K | 102 |
Top-paying companies
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | $402K | 14 |
| OpenAI | $356K | 10 |
| Twenty | $324K | 13 |
| Perplexity | $312K | 3 |
| Lambda | $309K | 6 |
| Decagon | $300K | 5 |
| Suno | $296K | 4 |
| Roblox | $281K | 14 |
| Scale AI | $270K | 4 |
| Affirm | $260K | 3 |
| $260K | 9 | |
| Vercel | $260K | 3 |
| Hims & Hers | $260K | 4 |
| xAI | $255K | 3 |
| EarnIn | $254K | 3 |
| Baseten | $248K | 8 |
| Ramp | $246K | 3 |
| Monte Carlo | $242K | 6 |
| Harvey | $240K | 12 |
| PagerDuty | $240K | 3 |
| Together AI | $240K | 3 |
| Crusoe | $238K | 14 |
| Illumio | $236K | 6 |
| True Anomaly | $231K | 8 |
| Headway | $230K | 3 |
Highest-paying open Observability roles
All Observability jobs- Research Engineer, Pretraining ScalingAnthropic · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA$350K - $850KLLMPyTorchJAX
- Software Engineer, Platform SystemsOpenAI · 🇺🇸San Francisco$380K - $500KDistributed trainingObservabilityHigh-performance computing
- Software Engineer, Resilience EngineeringOpenAI · 🇺🇸San Francisco$230K - $490KTerraformKubernetesDatadog
- Principal Engineer Capacity/ComputeAnthropic · 🇺🇸New York City, NY$320K - $485KLead and abovePythonSQLGCP
- Regional Vice President, Central | Remote |Grafana Labs · 🇺🇸United States (Remote)$450K - $475KRemoteLead and aboveObservability
- Director, Software EngineeringTwenty · 🇺🇸Arlington, VA$224K - $470KLead and abovePythonTypeScriptReact
- Staff Software Engineer - Infrastructure StorageLambda · 🇺🇸San Francisco Office (Fremont St)$314K - $465KHybridLead and aboveRustC++Machine Learning
- Staff Software Engineer - Managed KubernetesLambda · 🇺🇸San Francisco Office (Fremont St)$314K - $465KHybridLead and abovePythonMachine LearningLinux
- Forward Deployed Data Engineer – TS/SCI (Full Scope Poly)Twenty · 🇺🇸Chantilly, VA$192K - $455KGoPythonTypeScript
- Principal Machine Learning Engineer (AI/Platform)- League of LegendsRiot Games · 🇺🇸Los Angeles, USA$292K - $438KLead and aboveMachine LearningKubernetesAI
- Senior Staff Machine Learning Engineer, GenAI PlatformReddit · 🇺🇸Remote - United States$292K - $410KRemoteLead and aboveGoPythonTerraform
- Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer, Data Platform)Perplexity · 🇺🇸San Francisco$220K - $405KGoPythonTypeScript
- Member of Technical Staff (Applied AI Engineer, Agent Capabilities)Perplexity · 🇺🇸San Francisco$220K - $405KRustPythonTypeScript
- Enterprise Sales Manager, AmericasMonte Carlo · 🇺🇸Remote, US$360K - $400KRemoteSnowflakeHubSpotDatabricks
- Senior Software Engineer, ProductDecagon · 🇺🇸San Francisco$200K - $400KSeniorPythonLLMAI agents
- Staff Software Engineer, ProductDecagon · 🇺🇸San Francisco$200K - $400KLead and abovePythonLLMAI agents
- AI Infrastructure EngineerMercor · 🇺🇸San Francisco$200K - $400KPythonC++GCP
- Systems Software EngineerSunday · 🇺🇸Redwood City, CA$200K - $400KRustC++Linux
- Member of Technical Staff, Model EvaluationMirendil · 🇺🇸San Francisco$300K - $400KLLM evaluationObservability
- Product DesignerAntimetal · 🇺🇸HQ - NYC$200K - $400KLLMObservabilityDesign systems
Questions about Observability pay
- What is the average Observability salary?
- $214K a year on average and $208K at the median, across 772 open Observability 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 $241K a year. A quarter offer less and a quarter offer more.
- Which companies advertise the highest Observability pay?
- Anthropic ($402K), OpenAI ($356K), Twenty ($324K), by the median of their open postings that state pay (three postings or more).
- Is an observability a high-paying job?
- The median Observability posting advertises $208K a year, more than the median of all 55,899 job postings with pay on Jobs Every Hour ($174K). That is 19% above the middle of the market.
- How much can you earn as an observability?
- A tenth of the postings offer $292K a year or more; the highest open Observability role advertises up to $850K. Pay rises with level: see the table by level.
- What is the Observability salary per hour and per month?
- The median of $208K a year is about $100 an hour (2,080 working hours) and $17,292 a month before tax. The middle half of postings: $86 to $116 an hour.
- Which skills pay more for Observability roles?
- Postings that ask for Machine Learning (+$20K, 88 postings), LLM (+$19K, 174 postings), AI agents (+$18K, 97 postings) advertise more than the $208K median of all Observability 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 Observability roles at companies is $208K a year, and the middle half of postings offer $178K to $241K. Counted from 772 open job postings that state pay, November 2026. Source: Jobs Every Hour, https://jobseveryhour.com/salaries/observability/
Free to use with the link.