Security salary: $213K median
From 756 open roles that publish a yearly US-dollar range. Advertised ranges, not verified pay.
$213Kmedian advertised salary
$176K – $260Kmiddle half of roles
$225Kaverage advertised salary
756roles counted
Security salary by level
Lead roles advertise a median of $249K, 25% more than senior roles ($199K). The level comes from the job title; titles without a level word are counted separately.
| Level | Median salary | Middle half | Roles |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senior | $199K | $182K–$220K | 228 |
| Lead and above | $249K | $216K–$285K | 222 |
| No level in title | $190K | $149K–$260K | 301 |
Security salary by location
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| 🇺🇸New York | $249K | 134 |
| 🇺🇸San Francisco Bay Area | $240K | 303 |
| 🇺🇸California | $223K | 387 |
| 🇺🇸Seattle | $220K | 99 |
| 🇺🇸Washington, DC | $218K | 58 |
| 🇺🇸United States | $213K | 722 |
| 🇺🇸Denver | $198K | 28 |
| 🇺🇸Chicago | $198K | 15 |
| 🇺🇸Boston | $192K | 17 |
| 🇺🇸Texas | $177K | 22 |
| 🇺🇸Los Angeles | $145K | 42 |
Top-paying companies
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | $362K | 45 |
| OpenAI | $356K | 30 |
| Lambda | $330K | 5 |
| Perplexity | $312K | 4 |
| Roblox | $305K | 16 |
| Suno | $303K | 7 |
| Decagon | $300K | 4 |
| Replit | $295K | 5 |
| Harvey | $286K | 13 |
| Pure Storage | $281K | 3 |
| Sierra | $279K | 4 |
| Scale AI | $268K | 3 |
| Ripple | $261K | 7 |
| $260K | 3 | |
| ClickHouse | $260K | 5 |
| Vercel | $260K | 4 |
| Ramp | $260K | 5 |
| Block | $256K | 4 |
| Affirm | $250K | 3 |
| Discord | $250K | 4 |
| Zoox | $240K | 7 |
| Okta | $238K | 6 |
| $238K | 3 | |
| Figure | $238K | 4 |
| Box | $235K | 4 |
Highest-paying open Security roles
All Security jobs- Research Engineer, Cybersecurity RLAnthropic · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA | New York City, NY$500K - $850KMachine LearningLLM
- Engineering Manager, Hardware Platform SecurityAnthropic · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA | Seattle, WA$485K - $625KGoLinux
- Senior Director, Privacy, Product and Platform SecurityRoblox · 🇺🇸San Mateo, CA, United States$458K - $526KLead
- Technical Threat Investigator, Threat Intel EngineeringOpenAI · 🇺🇸San Francisco$347K - $510KRemote
- Principal Security Engineer, Infrastructure SecurityOpenAI · 🇺🇸US - Remote$401K - $510KRemoteLeadAzureCI/CDKubernetes
- Security - Member of Technical StaffGoodfire · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA$250K - $500K
- Principal Security EngineerBlock · 🇺🇸Bay Area, CA, United States of America$319K - $479KLead
- Staff Security ArchitectLambda · Bellevue Office$314K - $465KLeadGoPythonTerraform
- Security GRC LeadMercor · 🇺🇸San Francisco$350K - $425KLeadPythonSQLLLM
- Security Lead, Product and Infrastructure (InfoSec)River AI Inc. · 🇺🇸Palo Alto, CA$200K - $420KLead
- Sr. Staff Threat Intelligence EngineerSuno · 🇺🇸Boston$316K - $415KLeadPythonSQL
- Director of Product SecurityHarvey · 🇺🇸New York$272K - $408KLead
- Director of Product SecurityHarvey · 🇺🇸San Francisco$272K - $408KLead
- Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer, Security)Perplexity · 🇺🇸San Francisco$220K - $405KGoPythonTypeScript
- Member of Technical Staff (Offensive Security Engineer)Perplexity · 🇺🇸San Francisco$220K - $405KGoPythonGCP
- Senior Software Engineer, Platform SecurityDecagon · 🇺🇸San Francisco$200K - $400KSeniorPythonTypeScriptTerraform
- Senior Software Engineer, Application SecurityDecagon · 🇺🇸San Francisco$200K - $400KSeniorGCPCI/CD
- Principal Software Engineer, SecurityMongoDB · 🇺🇸New York City; Seattle; United States$203K - $399KLeadGCPAzureAWS
- Security EngineerLambda · 🇺🇸San Francisco Office (Fremont St)$230K - $395KGoPythonMachine Learning
- Security EngineerSierra · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA$230K - $390KLLMCI/CD
Questions about Security pay
- What is the average Security salary?
- $225K a year on average and $213K at the median, across 756 open Security 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 $176K to $260K a year. A quarter offer less and a quarter offer more.
- Which companies advertise the highest Security pay?
- Anthropic ($362K), OpenAI ($356K), Lambda ($330K), 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 Security roles at tech companies is $213K a year, and the middle half of postings offer $176K to $260K. Counted from 756 open job postings that state pay, November 2026. Source: Hiring Right Now, https://jobseveryhour.com/salaries/security/
Free to use with the link.