$ pwd ——>~/devopssalary/2026/national
DevOps engineer salary in 2026
$135K median, $85K-$210K band
A compensation reference for DevOps, SRE, platform, DevSecOps and MLOps engineers in the US. Base, bonus, RSUs and on-call broken out by level, location, specialisation and employer tier. Sourced from Levels.fyi, BLS OEWS 15-1244, Glassdoor, Built In and Blind verified self-reports.
$ devopssalary --query="us national" --asof=2026-04-27
role: DevOps Engineer (general)
geo: United States
unit: USD / yr
+ total_comp_p50 = $158K (base $135K + bonus/RSU $23K)
+ total_comp_p90 = $310K (FAANG-tier package, RSU-heavy)
# specialisation premiums applied multiplicatively (see /specialisations)
$
$ ./calculator --interactive
Compensation calculator
Pick your state, level, cloud, specialisation, certs and on-call. Output is base + bonus/equity + on-call + cert premium, mapped to a percentile band.
base salary
$186,440
range $164K–$209K
total compensation
$219,083
range $177K–$261K
percentile
80th-90th
hourly equiv
$90/hr
net / mo
$11,186
post tax estimate
* Triangulated from Levels.fyi California bands, BLS 15-1244 OEWS, Glassdoor and Built In. As of Apr 2026.
$ cat levels.tsv
Compensation by level (L3 → L7 + management)
Industry-standard ladder, normalised across companies. Big-tech ladder labels (Google L3-L7, Amazon SDE I-Principal SDE, Meta E3-E7) compress to the bands below. Total comp includes target bonus and annual RSU vest (mid-band). Numbers in $K USD.
| level | ladder | yrs | base | total comp |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| L3 | Junior / DE I | 0-2 | $85K–$115K | $95K–$145K |
| L4 | Mid / DE II | 2-5 | $115K–$150K | $140K–$200K |
| L5 | Senior | 5-9 | $150K–$195K | $195K–$320K |
| L6 | Staff | 8-13 | $185K–$240K | $280K–$480K |
| L7 | Principal / Distinguished | 12+ | $220K–$290K | $380K–$700K |
| M1 | DevOps Manager | 5-10 | $165K–$215K | $220K–$360K |
| M2 | Director / Sr Dir | 10+ | $210K–$290K | $320K–$580K |
Largest % jump in the career. ~30-50% on base.
Where RSUs start to dwarf base at big-tech. Total comp can double.
Headcount-limited. Slot-based promotion. Few open req.
→ Career path detail at /career. SRE / platform / MLOps premiums applied at /specialisations.
$ diff employer_tiers.json
Big-tech vs unicorn vs mid-stage vs enterprise
The same L5 senior DevOps title pays very differently across employer tiers. Big-tech leans RSU-heavy, unicorns lean equity upside, mid-stage leans cash-balanced, enterprise leans steady-base + good benefits.
- base
- $190K-$240K
- bonus
- 15-20% target
- rsu
- $80K-$180K/yr vest
- total
- $300K-$450K
Refreshers + IPO RSU sit on top. Pay floors high, ceilings highest.
- base
- $170K-$215K
- bonus
- 10-15% target
- rsu
- $40K-$120K/yr (illiquid)
- total
- $240K-$380K
Equity is paper until exit. Some pre-IPO secondaries.
- base
- $155K-$195K
- bonus
- 10-15% target
- rsu
- $15K-$50K/yr or options
- total
- $190K-$280K
Best work/life balance bands. Often pays flat across US geos.
- base
- $140K-$185K
- bonus
- 10-20% target, reliable
- rsu
- $10K-$40K/yr (or none)
- total
- $170K-$245K
Lower upside, very stable. Pension/401k match strong.
$ sort -k2,2 -n metros.tsv | head
Top-paying US metros
Median base salary by metro. SF Bay anchors the top of the band; mid-tier tech hubs run roughly 75-85% of Bay rates. Cost-of-living-adjusted ranks at costoflivingbystate.com.
→ All 50 states at /by-state. Remote pay framing at /remote.
$ ls /specialisations
Specialisations and pay premiums
DevOps, SRE, platform engineering and MLOps are adjacent but distinct titles with different medians and on-call profiles. Premiums applied multiplicatively over the L5 general DevOps base (~$165K).
Site Reliability Engineer
+10-20%$195K-$420K /yr TC
SLOs, error budgets, distributed systems. Heavier on-call, deeper SWE skills.
Platform Engineer
+10-15%$185K-$390K /yr TC
Internal developer platforms, golden paths, Backstage / Kratix. Fastest growth in 2026.
DevSecOps Engineer
+15-25%$200K-$430K /yr TC
Shift-left security, supply chain, secrets, compliance automation. Regulatory tailwind.
MLOps / AI Infrastructure
+20-35%$220K-$520K /yr TC
GPU orchestration, model serving, training pipelines. Highest-paid specialisation.
Cloud Architect
+15-30%$210K-$460K /yr TC
Multi-cloud strategy, FinOps, enterprise architecture, landing zones.
Release Engineer
+0-5%$145K-$240K /yr TC
Release trains, versioning, deploy automation. Steady but lower ceiling.
$ git log --since="2026-Q1" trends/
What's moving comp in 2026
MLOps demand accelerating
Foundation-model and inference-infra orgs paid 22-35% above general DevOps in Q1 2026. GPU operator scarcity is the binding constraint.
Platform engineering eating DevOps job titles
More postings retitled to Platform Engineer at the L5/L6 level. Same on-call, slightly higher base, often better tooling scope.
Remote pay stabilising after 2024 cuts
Most big-tech remote bands settled ~10-15% below SF. Mid-stage SaaS still pays near-Bay flat for senior+ roles to compete.
Single-cloud-only generalist roles flat
Pure AWS-only generalists at L4 are seeing the smallest YoY pay growth. Multi-cloud + K8s lifts the band by ~10-15%.
$ tree -L 1 .
Deep-dives
/by-state
Salary by US state
Full 50-state median + COL-adjusted ranks.
/career
Career ladder
L3 → L7 progression, IC vs management fork.
/specialisations
Specialisations
SRE / platform / DevSecOps / MLOps premiums.
/sre-vs-devops
SRE vs DevOps
Why SREs earn 10-20% more, side-by-side bands.
/skills
Skills & tool premiums
K8s, Terraform, multi-cloud, AI infra premiums.
/certifications
Certifications ROI
CKA, AWS Pro, Terraform: $ uplift by cert.
/companies
Companies & tiers
FAANG / unicorn / mid-stage / enterprise comp.
/remote
Remote pay
Geo-banding, flat-rate employers, post-2024 cuts.
/contract
Contract rates
$80-$200/hr by specialisation, W-2 vs 1099 vs C2C.
/on-call-pay
On-call comp
Stipends, per-page, comp-time. $6-24K/yr.
/comparisons
vs adjacent roles
DevOps vs SWE / data eng / cloud arch / PM.
/negotiation
Negotiation playbook
DevOps-specific leverage points and scripts.
$ man devopssalary