SQL salary: $186K median
From 2,295 open roles that publish a yearly US-dollar range. Advertised ranges, not verified pay.
$186Kmedian advertised salary
$145K – $225Kmiddle half of roles
$190Kaverage advertised salary
2,295roles counted
SQL salary by level
Senior roles advertise a median of $187K, 67% more than junior roles ($112K). The level comes from the job title; titles without a level word are counted separately.
| Level | Median salary | Middle half | Roles |
|---|---|---|---|
| Junior | $112K | $100K–$125K | 23 |
| Senior | $187K | $160K–$206K | 721 |
| Lead and above | $234K | $202K–$264K | 477 |
| No level in title | $159K | $128K–$210K | 1,074 |
SQL salary by location
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| 🇺🇸San Francisco Bay Area | $214K | 792 |
| 🇺🇸Washington, DC | $211K | 42 |
| 🇺🇸Pittsburgh | $200K | 15 |
| 🇺🇸California | $198K | 1,036 |
| 🇺🇸New York | $195K | 452 |
| 🇺🇸United States | $188K | 2,154 |
| 🇨🇦Canada | $188K | 37 |
| 🇺🇸Austin | $178K | 20 |
| 🇺🇸Seattle | $177K | 191 |
| 🇺🇸Texas | $176K | 49 |
| 🇺🇸Boston | $174K | 56 |
| 🇺🇸Dallas | $169K | 21 |
| 🇺🇸Denver | $167K | 42 |
| 🇺🇸Chicago | $158K | 67 |
| 🇺🇸Atlanta | $151K | 24 |
| 🇺🇸Los Angeles | $142K | 184 |
Top-paying companies
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| Mercor | $330K | 7 |
| Anthropic | $308K | 74 |
| OpenAI | $306K | 46 |
| Suno | $270K | 8 |
| Cursor | $261K | 4 |
| Perplexity | $251K | 14 |
| EarnIn | $250K | 4 |
| GoFundMe | $250K | 4 |
| $249K | 22 | |
| Roblox | $249K | 20 |
| Amplitude | $248K | 7 |
| OKX | $248K | 8 |
| Vercel | $245K | 5 |
| Harvey | $240K | 15 |
| Attentive | $238K | 3 |
| Waymo | $238K | 45 |
| Faire | $233K | 15 |
| Wayve | $232K | 10 |
| $229K | 21 | |
| Muon Space | $228K | 4 |
| Baseten | $226K | 5 |
| ClickHouse | $226K | 26 |
| Thumbtack | $226K | 4 |
| Figma | $224K | 9 |
| BitGo | $222K | 4 |
Highest-paying open SQL roles
All SQL jobs- Performance Engineer, Inference SystemsAnthropic · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA | New York City, NY | Seattle, WA$350K - $850KPythonSQLLLM
- Sr. Director, Developer GTMCloudflare · Hybrid$434K - $597KLeadSQL
- Data Engineering Manager, Growth & RevenueOpenAI · 🇺🇸San Francisco$459K - $536KPythonSQLScala
- Data Scientist, FinEngOpenAI · 🇺🇸San Francisco$293K - $515KPythonSQL
- Research Engineer - Environments, Data and Post-TrainingMercor · 🇺🇸San Francisco$180K - $500KSQLMachine LearningLLM
- Research Engineer – BenchmarkingMercor · 🇺🇸San Francisco$200K - $500KSQLLLM
- Principal Engineer Capacity/ComputeAnthropic · 🇺🇸New York City, NY$320K - $485KLeadPythonSQLGCP
- Head of Global Total RewardsAmplitude · 🇺🇸San Francisco$285K - $476KRemoteLeadSQLExcelWorkday
- Sr. Staff Threat Intelligence EngineerSuno · 🇺🇸Boston$316K - $415KLeadPythonSQL
- Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer, Computer Growth)Perplexity · 🇺🇸San Francisco$220K - $405KPythonTypeScriptReact
- Sr. Staff Product Manager, Adversarial ActorsPinterest · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA, US; Seattle, WA, US; Remote, CA, US$196K - $403KRemoteLeadSQL
- Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Financial ProductsAdyen · 🇺🇸San Francisco$297K - $401KLeadPythonJavaSQL
- Engineering Director, Agentic AI Data PlatformAirwallex · 🇺🇸US - San Francisco$300K - $400KLeadPythonSQLPostgreSQL
- Product Manager, Pricing and MonetizationBaseten · 🇺🇸San Francisco$200K - $400KSQLMachine Learning
- Director of Data ScienceMotional · 🇺🇸Boston, Massachusetts, United States; Las Vegas, Nevada…$288K - $396KRemoteLeadPythonSQLAWS
- Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Ads Bidding & PacingPinterest · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA, US; Palo Alto, CA, US; Seattle, WA, US$223K - $390KLeadSQLMachine LearningLLM
- Manager, Product Applied ScienceGarner Health · 🇺🇸New York City, New York$300K - $390KPythonSQLMachine Learning
- Staff Applied ScientistGarner Health · 🇺🇸New York City, New York$300K - $390KLeadPythonSQLMachine Learning
- Staff Software Engineer, Data InfrastructurePatreon · Remote$232K - $386KRemoteLeadPythonJavaSQL
- Manager, Data ScienceAttentive · 🇺🇸New York, NY (Hybrid)$320K - $380KPythonSQLMachine Learning
Questions about SQL pay
- What is the average SQL salary?
- $190K a year on average and $186K at the median, across 2,295 open SQL 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 $145K to $225K a year. A quarter offer less and a quarter offer more.
- Which companies advertise the highest SQL pay?
- Mercor ($330K), Anthropic ($308K), OpenAI ($306K), 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 SQL roles at tech companies is $186K a year, and the middle half of postings offer $145K to $225K. Counted from 2,295 open job postings that state pay, November 2026. Source: Hiring Right Now, https://jobseveryhour.com/salaries/sql/
Free to use with the link.