# Data engineer salary: $180,000–$240,000 a year

Every number below comes from 171 tracked live postings whose title matches "data engineer". No surveys, no self-reports — listed salaries only, in US dollars.

Measured September 2026 · n=71 US postings with salary.

## Findings

- The median data engineer posting offers $180,000–$240,000 a year (n=71).
- 52.6% of the 171 live postings matching "data engineer" are remote.
- Level 4 data engineers (building AI systems) list $150,000–$205,000, vs $186,283–$238,800 at Level 1.

## Median salary by seniority (USD / year)

| Segment | US postings with salary | Median min–max / year |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Intern | 0 | not enough data |
| Junior | 0 | not enough data |
| Mid-level | 10 | $145,000–$188,000 |
| Senior | 51 | $180,000–$238,800 |
| Lead | 8 | $238,000–$349,600 |

## Remote vs on-site (USD / year)

| Segment | US postings with salary | Median min–max / year |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Remote | 36 | $183,033–$241,450 |
| On-site / hybrid | 35 | $174,000–$240,000 |

## Companies hiring data engineers

- [SunnyData](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/sunnydata) (11)
- [OpenAI](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/openai) (7)
- [Salesforce](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/salesforce) (5)
- [Aircall](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/aircall) (4)
- [Airwallex](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/airwallex) (4)
- [Anthropic](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/anthropic) (4)
- [Coinbase](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/coinbase) (4)
- [Databricks](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/databricks) (3)

## Method

US-dollar postings whose title contains "data engineer", with both salary bounds listed. This page exists because 71 such postings clear the 50-posting floor Level requires before publishing a dedicated salary page — below that, the median moves too much between ingestion cycles to be a citable number.

Sample: postings at tech companies tracked by Level. Not the whole labor market — do not cite as a national average.

Refreshed automatically; this edition is measured September 2026. Small-n slices move a lot — read the n column first.

## Data engineer salary questions, answered from the data

**What is the median data engineer salary?**

Across 71 live US postings for data engineers with a listed USD salary, measured September 2026, the median offer is $180,000–$240,000 a year. This is the tracked catalog, not the whole labor market.

**How many data engineers jobs are remote?**

52.6% of the 71 live postings are marked remote by the employer, measured September 2026.

**Does the AI level of the job change the pay?**

In this sample, 5 postings are Level 4 (building AI systems) and 103 are Level 1 (AI is not the work). See the AI level breakdown below for the median in each band. Measured September 2026.

Source: https://jobsbylevel.com/salaries/role/data-engineer