$ pwd -->~/devopssalary/2026/national
DevOps engineer salary in 2026
$135,980 BLS median, $82,460-$214,670 band
A compensation reference for DevOps, SRE, platform, DevSecOps and MLOps engineers in the US. The headline figures are derived from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) release for SOC 15-1252, the closest published occupation to a DevOps engineer. Level, employer tier, RSU and on-call layers are market-comp data from Levels.fyi, Glassdoor, Built In and Blind self-reports, which is a different kind of source and is labelled as such everywhere it appears.
"DevOps engineer" is not a Standard Occupational Classification title, so the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey publishes no wage series under that name. The figures on this page come from SOC 15-1252 Software Developers, the closest published occupation. Read them as a floor and a shape for the market, not as a DevOps engineer salary survey.
evidence: O*NET OnLine's occupation keyword search returns 15-1252.00 Software Developers as the leading computing match for the job title "devops engineer" (onetonline.org/find/quick?s=devops%20engineer, checked 6 September 2026).
primary · SOC 15-1252
Software Developers
$135,980
US median, 1,687,890 employed
secondary · SOC 15-1244
Network and Computer Systems Administrators
$99,130
US median, 314,340 employed
Network and Computer Systems Administrators is the operations-side SOC that DevOps work is also coded into. It is shown alongside Software Developers so the bracket is visible rather than hidden behind a single choice. Treat the two medians as the bracket a DevOps role is measured inside, not as two competing answers.
$ devopssalary --query="us national" --source=bls-oews --asof=2026-09-06
geo: United States
unit: USD / yr
# derived · BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), SOC 15-1252 Software Developers
P10 = $82,460
P25 = $105,210
P50 = $135,980 (median)
P75 = $171,980
P90 = $214,670
mean = $148,100 employment = 1,687,890
# second bracket · SOC 15-1244 Network and Computer Systems Administrators
P50 = $99,130 P90 = $155,050 employment = 314,340
$ devopssalary --query="us national" --source=market-comp --asof=2026-04-27
# NOT BLS. Self-reported base salary, Levels.fyi, Glassdoor, Built In and Blind self-reports.
+ total_comp_p50 = $158K (base $135K + bonus/RSU $23K)
+ total_comp_p90 = $310K (FAANG-tier package, RSU-heavy)
# specialisation premiums applied multiplicatively (see /specialisations)
$
# source
BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, SOC 15-1252. Snapshot taken 6 September 2026.
BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, SOC 15-1244. Snapshot taken 6 September 2026.
Reference period May 2025. Public domain; attribute to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor. Licence.
Suppression codes: * wage estimate not available; ** employment estimate not available; # wage equal to or greater than $115.00 per hour or $239,200 per year.
Refresh: Annual. BLS publishes each OEWS reference year about twelve months after the May reference period; the May 2026 estimates are due in spring 2027. Re-run extract-oews.py and build-site-data.mjs against the new flat files.
$ ./calculator --interactive
Compensation calculator
Pick your state, level, cloud, specialisation, certs and on-call. The band starts from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) median for SOC 15-1252 in your state, then applies market-comp multipliers for level, cloud and specialisation. Output is base + bonus/equity + on-call + cert premium, positioned against the national OEWS percentile ladder.
base salary
$205,804
range $181K–$230K
total compensation
$241,837
range $196K–$288K
vs national oews
P75-P90
SOC 15-1252 ladder
hourly equiv
$99/hr
net / mo
$12,348
post tax estimate
* Anchor: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) annual median for SOC 15-1252 Software Developers in California ($174,410). Snapshot taken 6 September 2026. Level, cloud, specialisation, certification and on-call multipliers are market-comp (Levels.fyi, Glassdoor, Built In and Blind self-reports), not BLS. "DevOps engineer" is not an OEWS occupation; see the mapping note at the top of the page.
$ 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. Market-comp data (Levels.fyi, Glassdoor, Built In and Blind self-reports) as of 27 April 2026; BLS publishes no wage series by career level, so none of this table is derived.
| 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, from market-comp self-reports (Levels.fyi, Glassdoor, Built In and Blind self-reports) as of 27 April 2026. These are not BLS figures: the OEWS metropolitan file is a separate release that this site does not yet carry, so nothing on this list is derived. Cost-of-living-adjusted ranks at costoflivingbystate.com.
→ All 50 states and DC, derived from BLS OEWS, 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 are market-comp (Levels.fyi, Glassdoor, Built In and Blind self-reports), applied multiplicatively over the L5 general DevOps base of about $165K. BLS does not publish a wage series for any of them.
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
All 51 BLS OEWS rows: 50 states plus DC, both SOC brackets.
/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 15-25% 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.
/aws-devops-certification-salary
AWS cert salary lift
AWS DevOps Pro cert: +$7-12K, $300 exam cost.
/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.
/devops-vs-cybersecurity-salary
DevOps vs cybersecurity
Side-by-side pay, BLS growth, DevSecOps crossover.
/devops-vs-software-engineer-salary
DevOps vs software engineer
Side-by-side pay, ceiling gap, where each wins.
/negotiation
Negotiation playbook
DevOps-specific leverage points and scripts.
$ man devopssalary