Security Engineer salary
What security engineers are offered right now, taken from the salary ranges employers print in their own open postings rather than from self-reported surveys. The headline band is for every level together; the tables below separate first jobs from senior seats, remote from on-site, and one employer from another.
Typical means the span from the 25th percentile of range midpoints to the 90th percentile of range tops, every figure taken as a full-time year (an hourly rate times 2,080 hours). A group below needs enough distinct ranges for a figure of its own; where it has fewer, the table says so instead of guessing. The methodology explains how postings are read.
By seniority
Pay at each rung, from intern to manager
Titles are grouped by the level they name. A title with no level word is usually a mid-level seat.
| Level | With a salary | Typical | Middle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intern or student | 4 | $88.4k–$148k/yr | $114k/yr |
| Junior, entry or associate | 1 | too few ranges | |
| No level in the title | 125 | $149k–$405k/yr | $205k/yr |
| Senior, staff or principal | 170 | $191k–$327k/yr | $215k/yr |
| Lead or manager | 12 | $178k–$362k/yr | $206k/yr |
Workplace
Remote against on-site and hybrid
| Workplace | With a salary | Typical | Middle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Remote | 106 | $189k–$405k/yr | $220k/yr |
| On-site or hybrid | 206 | $170k–$342k/yr | $205k/yr |
Kind of employer
Who pays more: vendors, banks, cloud companies or labs
| Employer kind | With a salary | Typical | Middle |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI labs | 45 | $273k–$494k/yr | $325k/yr |
| Software and internet companies | 88 | $181k–$334k/yr | $221k/yr |
| Finance, payments and crypto | 32 | $176k–$327k/yr | $216k/yr |
| Cloud, data and infrastructure | 59 | $179k–$307k/yr | $208k/yr |
| Defense, aerospace and hardware | 45 | $165k–$268k/yr | $195k/yr |
| Security software companies | 37 | $143k–$253k/yr | $186k/yr |
| AI expert networks | 4 | $143k–$266k/yr | $156k/yr |
| Security consultancies and managed services | 2 | too few ranges |
Employers
Best-paying employers for security engineers
Only employers with enough stated ranges in this specialty for a figure of their own, highest middle first.
| Employer | With a salary | Typical | Middle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | 14 | $336k–$461k/yr | $363k/yr |
| OpenAI | 20 | $304k–$501k/yr | $351k/yr |
| Decagon | 3 | $283k–$400k/yr | $300k/yr |
| Roblox | 6 | $245k–$375k/yr | $274k/yr |
| Block | 3 | $272k–$448k/yr | $272k/yr |
| Cohere | 4 | $244k–$405k/yr | $265k/yr |
| Serval | 3 | $263k–$325k/yr | $263k/yr |
| Brain Co. | 4 | $234k–$325k/yr | $258k/yr |
| Higgsfield AI | 3 | $250k–$300k/yr | $250k/yr |
| Verkada | 6 | $216k–$300k/yr | $250k/yr |
| Snowflake | 4 | $236k–$298k/yr | $249k/yr |
| Figma | 3 | $199k–$370k/yr | $244k/yr |
| Databricks | 7 | $227k–$308k/yr | $231k/yr |
| Cloudflare | 3 | $204k–$296k/yr | $230k/yr |
| Skydio | 3 | $198k–$266k/yr | $220k/yr |
Open now
The highest salaries stated in open postings
- Research Engineer, Cybersecurity RL · San Francisco, CA | New York City, NY$500,000-$850,000 per year
- Staff Security Engineer · San Jose, CA, USA$289,320-$537,360 per year
- Principal Security Engineer, Infrastructure Security · US - Remote$401,000-$510,000 per year
- Principal Software Engineer, Infrastructure Security · US - Remote$401,000-$510,000 per year
- Researcher, Frontier Cybersecurity Risks · San Francisco$380,000-$500,000 per year
- Senior Global Security Investigator · US - Remote$230,400-$500,000 per year
- Staff+ Software Engineer, Cybersecurity Products · San Francisco, CA$405,000-$485,000 per year
- Principal Security Engineer · Bay Area, CA, United States of America$319,000-$478,600 per year
- Enterprise Security Engineer, Vulnerability Management · San Francisco$347,000-$445,000 per year
- Full Stack Software Engineer, Cybersecurity Products · San Francisco$266,000-$445,000 per year
Every security engineering role with a salary, highest first.
Questions
Security Engineer pay, answered from the postings
What salary do security engineers earn in 2026?
Open postings for security engineers state a typical $174k–$375k/yr, with the middle at $212k/yr. That rests on 308 distinct salary ranges from 115 employers, read 11 Nov 2026. All figures are full-time yearly salaries in US dollars: an hourly, weekly or monthly rate in a posting is multiplied by 2,080, 52 or 12 (40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year).
Do remote security engineering roles pay less?
On today's postings remote roles state a middle of $220k/yr and on-site or hybrid roles $205k/yr, so working remotely costs nothing here: remote seats pay at least as much. Both figures come from 312 open roles that state a salary.
Where do security engineers get the highest offers?
Of the employers with enough stated ranges to compare, Anthropic has the highest middle, $363k/yr, followed by OpenAI ($351k/yr). The table on this page ranks every employer with a figure of its own.
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