Staff And Principal Engineer salary: $248K median
From 1,720 open roles that publish a yearly US-dollar range. Advertised ranges, not verified pay.
$248Kmedian advertised salary
$220K – $286Kmiddle half of roles
$260Kaverage advertised salary
1,720roles counted
Staff And Principal Engineer salary by location
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| 🇺🇸Seattle | $282K | 142 |
| 🇺🇸New York | $275K | 256 |
| 🇺🇸San Francisco Bay Area | $272K | 820 |
| 🇺🇸California | $264K | 1,001 |
| 🇺🇸United States | $249K | 1,647 |
| 🇺🇸Pittsburgh | $238K | 26 |
| 🇺🇸Austin | $230K | 15 |
| 🇺🇸Boston | $228K | 50 |
| 🇺🇸Washington, DC | $224K | 19 |
| 🇺🇸Denver | $223K | 62 |
| 🇺🇸Los Angeles | $222K | 49 |
| 🇨🇦Canada | $218K | 25 |
| 🇺🇸Texas | $218K | 27 |
Top-paying companies
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | $445K | 89 |
| Lambda | $390K | 10 |
| OpenAI | $376K | 11 |
| Datadog | $360K | 5 |
| Inworld AI | $350K | 3 |
| Block | $330K | 11 |
| Garner Health | $328K | 4 |
| Asana | $327K | 4 |
| Turing | $325K | 4 |
| Roblox | $320K | 56 |
| Sentry | $320K | 4 |
| Replit | $318K | 4 |
| Perplexity | $312K | 36 |
| Decagon | $300K | 6 |
| Suno | $296K | 22 |
| Zoox | $295K | 32 |
| Wayve | $294K | 17 |
| Faire | $292K | 6 |
| Epic Games | $292K | 3 |
| $288K | 30 | |
| Harvey | $286K | 34 |
| Scale AI | $284K | 15 |
| Vanta | $283K | 3 |
| Waymo | $280K | 49 |
| Together AI | $280K | 5 |
Highest-paying open Staff And Principal Engineer roles
All staff and principal engineer jobs- Staff Research Engineer, Discovery TeamAnthropic · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA$350K - $850KLeadDockerKubernetes
- Staff Research Engineer, Multi-Agent ScalingAnthropic · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA | New York City, NY | Seattle, WA$500K - $850KLeadLLM
- Distinguished Software ArchitectWayve · 🇺🇸Sunnyvale, California USA$500K - $600KComputer Vision
- Principal Software Engineer, ChatGPT Education and LearningOpenAI · 🇺🇸San Francisco$459K - $536KLeadLLM
- Principal Software Engineer, Full Stack — CodexOpenAI · 🇺🇸San Francisco$459K - $536KLead
- Principal Engineer, AI PlatformPinterest · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA, US; Remote, US$243K - $500KRemoteLeadRustJavaC++
- Principal Engineer, Big Data PlatformPinterest · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA, US; Remote, US$243K - $500KRemoteLeadGoPythonJava
- Staff / Principal Research Scientist, Models - USAInworld AI · 🇺🇸Mountain View, California, USA$270K - $500KLeadLLMNLP
- Senior Staff / Principal Software Engineer - Freeway AutonomyZoox · 🇺🇸Foster City, CA$340K - $493KLeadC++
- Senior Staff / Principal Machine Learning Engineer - Autonomy BehaviorsZoox · 🇺🇸Foster City, CA$340K - $492KLeadPythonC++Machine Learning
- Member of Technical Staff (AI Inference Engineer)Perplexity · 🇺🇸San Francisco$220K - $485KRustPythonLLM
- Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer, GPU Cluster Infrastructure)Perplexity · 🇺🇸San Francisco$250K - $485KRustGoC++
- Principal Engineer - PlatformNeko Health · 🇺🇸New York$405K - $480KLeadAzure
- Principal Security EngineerBlock · 🇺🇸Bay Area, CA, United States of America$319K - $479KLead
- Staff Software Engineer - Infrastructure StorageLambda · 🇺🇸San Francisco Office (Fremont St)$314K - $465KLeadRustC++Machine Learning
- Staff Software Engineer - ComputeLambda · Bellevue Office$314K - $465KLeadRustGoPython
- Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Data Curation & Dataset StrategyWayve · 🇺🇸Sunnyvale, California USA$390K - $460KLeadPythonMachine LearningAI
- Distinguished Engineer, Content PlatformRoblox · 🇺🇸San Mateo, CA, United States$399K - $458K
- Distinguished Engineer, Machine Learning - DiscoveryRoblox · 🇺🇸San Mateo, CA, United States$419K - $458KMachine LearningLLMAI
- Senior Staff Data EngineerCohere · 🇨🇦Toronto$275K - $450KLeadTerraformAirflowdbt
Questions about Staff And Principal Engineer pay
- What is the average Staff And Principal Engineer salary?
- $260K a year on average and $248K at the median, across 1,720 open Staff And Principal Engineer 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 $220K to $286K a year. A quarter offer less and a quarter offer more.
- Which companies advertise the highest Staff And Principal Engineer pay?
- Anthropic ($445K), Lambda ($390K), OpenAI ($376K), 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 Staff And Principal Engineer roles at tech companies is $248K a year, and the middle half of postings offer $220K to $286K. Counted from 1,720 open job postings that state pay, November 2026. Source: Hiring Right Now, https://jobseveryhour.com/salaries/staff-engineer/
Free to use with the link.