2021 Tech Engineer Salary Rankings: Who Pays the Most?

Levels.fyi recently released its 2021 programmer salary report, compiled from over 100,000 data points across more than 1,500 cities worldwide. The figures represent median annual total compensation—including salary, stock, and bonuses—collected over the past year.

The report notes that while the data focuses on software engineers, the highest‑paying companies and locations often apply to a range of technical roles, with compensation influenced by interview performance, experience, and competitive offers.

Junior Engineer Salaries

Quantitative firm Two Sigma leads the junior category with a median salary of $250,000, followed by cloud content platform BOX at $236,000 and online gaming platform Roblox at $233,000. Lyft, which topped the list in the previous year with $230,000, fell to sixth place at $215,000. All top‑seven companies in this list offer median junior salaries above $200,000.

Mid‑Level Engineer Salaries

Roblox again tops the mid‑level rankings with a median of $335,000, followed by Cruise at $333,000 and Instacart at $308,000. Airbnb, the previous year’s leader with $295,000, does not appear on this year’s list.

Senior Engineer Salaries

Netflix dominates the senior tier with a median of $504,000. ByteDance is the sole Chinese company on the list, ranking fifth with $430,000. In 2020, ByteDance had appeared at various seniority levels, ranging from $260,000 to $493,000.

Principal Engineer (Chief Engineer) Salaries

Roblox’s principal engineers command the highest median compensation at $1,200,000, followed by Facebook at $940,000, Lyft at $823,000, Google at $800,000, Pinterest and Apple at $750,000 each, and Microsoft at $650,000. Principal engineers typically have over 15 years of experience and represent less than 3% of a company’s staff.

Geographic Distribution

In the United States, the top three regions for engineer pay are San Francisco ($240,000), Seattle ($215,000), and New York ($190,000). Globally, Zurich, Switzerland leads with $200,000, followed by Tel Aviv, Israel ($190,000) and Sydney, Australia ($145,000). Beijing, China, which ranked tenth with $100,000 last year, does not appear on this year’s list.

Full report: https://www.levels.fyi/2021/