Security engineer salary, in real numbers

Posted security engineer base bands run from about $100k at the bottom of Microsoft’s and CrowdStrike’s mid-level ranges to $240k at the top of Datadog’s senior band, with most big-tech mid-level bands between $150k and $215k. The AI labs sit in a different market — OpenAI posts $266,000–$445,000 and Anthropic $300,000–$405,000, plus equity — and Netflix posts an all-cash $400,000–$680,000 for an L5. Equity does the rest where it exists: levels.fyi puts total compensation at $210k–$252k at Microsoft, $240k–$334k at Amazon, $215k–$325k at Datadog and $425k–$480k at Coinbase. Every band below comes from a live posting, levels.fyi or a dated public source.

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Every posted security engineer salary band

Ordered by ranking. Click through to any company for the full band, sourcing, and hiring status.

#	Company	Base salary (posted)	Total comp (est.)
1	Google	$147k–$210k	—
2	OpenAI	$266k–$445k	—
3	Anthropic	$300k–$405k	—
4	Amazon	$159k–$202k	$240k–$334k
5	Apple	$123k–$214k	—
6	Microsoft	$102k–$202k	$210k–$252k
7	Netflix	$400k–$680k	$425k–$612k
8	Meta	$154k–$217k	—
9	Coinbase	$180k–$212k	$425k–$480k
10	Datadog	$192k–$240k	$215k–$325k
11	Cloudflare	$166k–$208k	—
12	CrowdStrike	$120k–$180k	$174k–$203k

Posted base bands, compared

Netflix

$400k–$680k

OpenAI

$266k–$445k

Anthropic

$300k–$405k

Datadog

$192k–$240k

Common questions

For a mid-level security engineer at a large US tech company, posted base bands centre on roughly $150k–$215k: Google III $147,000–$210,000, Meta $154,000–$217,000, Amazon II $159,300–$202,400, Cloudflare $166,000–$208,000 and Coinbase $180,370–$212,200, with Microsoft ($102,100–$202,200) and Apple ($122,700–$214,300) posting wider junior-to-mid bands. levels.fyi medians with equity run from about $228k at Microsoft and $264k at Amazon L5 to $600k at Netflix.

Netflix, by a wide margin on posted base: $400,000–$680,000 at L5 and $499,000–$900,000 at L6, all cash. OpenAI ($266,000–$445,000) and Anthropic ($300,000–$405,000) post the next-highest bands, both plus equity. On reported total compensation, Coinbase ($425k–$480k, IC5–IC6) and Netflix ($425k–$612k) lead, followed by Amazon L5 ($240k–$334k) and Datadog ($215k–$325k).

At the same company and level, about the same — security engineers at Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple sit on ladders that mirror the software track, and OpenAI’s and Anthropic’s security bands match their engineering bands. The premium shows up in two places: specialties with scarce skills (offensive research, cryptography, cloud IAM) land in the upper half of a band, and security-first companies such as CrowdStrike and Cloudflare pay below big tech because their whole engineering org does.

No. Most postings span a level or two — Apple’s ICT2–ICT3 band runs $122,700–$214,300, Microsoft’s IC3 band $102,100–$202,200 — and offers land by level and location (Microsoft and Amazon post higher bands for the SF Bay Area and New York). OpenAI and Anthropic name no level on their security reqs, so their bands span mid to senior. Netflix is the exception: because it pays salary only, its band is effectively the whole offer.

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Security engineer salary, in real numbers

Every posted security engineer salary band

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