Principal software engineer salary in the San Francisco Bay Area
The median posted base pay for principal software engineer jobs in the San Francisco Bay Area is $274K a year, from 240 open jobs at 89 companies. The middle half of the jobs is from $225K to $320K. One job in ten has posted pay above $371K.
- Median posted base pay
- $274K
- Middle half of the jobs
- $225K to $320K
- 10th to 90th percentile
- $205K to $371K
- Open jobs with posted pay
- 240
- Companies
- 89
Software engineer pay by level in the San Francisco Bay Area
Posted base pay for software engineer jobs in the San Francisco Bay Area, by the level in the job title. This page is about the principal level. A level needs 20 or more jobs with posted pay.
- Intern29 jobs$123K$115K to $132K
- Entry level89 jobs$148K$140K to $164K
- Level not stated2,604 jobs$200K$165K to $240K
- Senior1,636 jobs$213K$192K to $239K
- Staff730 jobs$239K$215K to $272K
- Principal240 jobs$274K$225K to $320K
- Director+161 jobs$285K$251K to $325K
| Level | 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th | Jobs with pay |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intern | $103K | $115K | $123K | $132K | $146K | 29 |
| Entry level | $129K | $140K | $148K | $164K | $177K | 89 |
| Level not stated | $145K | $165K | $200K | $240K | $296K | 2,604 |
| Senior | $170K | $192K | $213K | $239K | $270K | 1,636 |
| Staff | $195K | $215K | $239K | $272K | $313K | 730 |
| Principal | $205K | $225K | $274K | $320K | $371K | 240 |
| Director+ | $210K | $251K | $285K | $325K | $380K | 161 |
Top-paying companies for principal software engineer jobs in the San Francisco Bay Area
The companies with the highest median posted base pay for principal software engineer jobs in the San Francisco Bay Area. A company name opens its levels in the pay explorer.
- 1NVIDIA$352K29 jobs
- 2Snowflake$322K11 jobs
- 3Roblox$320K27 jobs
- 4Salesforce$271K5 jobs
- 5Workday$241K5 jobs
- 6Zscaler$225K5 jobs
- 7Walmart$215K23 jobs
- 8Astera Labs$214K10 jobs
- 9SK hynix memory solutions America Inc.$186K8 jobs
Related pay pages
Open jobs
- Software engineer jobs in the San Francisco Bay Area
- $150K+ software engineer jobs in the San Francisco Bay Area
- $200K+ software engineer jobs in the San Francisco Bay Area
- $250K+ software engineer jobs in the San Francisco Bay Area
- $300K+ software engineer jobs in the San Francisco Bay Area
- Compare an offer in the pay explorer
- Check an offer
Other levels in the San Francisco Bay Area
Other places
Other job types in the San Francisco Bay Area
- Principal machine learning engineer salary
- Principal inference and ML systems engineer salary
- Principal AI researcher salary
- Principal infrastructure, platform and SRE engineer salary
- Principal security engineer salary
- Principal product manager salary
- Principal solutions engineer salary
- Principal hardware and robotics engineer salary
How we compute these numbers
We read each job from the job board of the company and check it every day. We use only open jobs that state a yearly pay range in US dollars. One job counts with the middle point of its posted range. The median is the middle value of these amounts: half of the jobs are above it and half are below it.
We do not use a range with a bottom below $15,000, a top above $1,000,000, or a top that is more than four times the bottom. A role page needs 20 or more open jobs with posted pay. In the bar chart, a company needs 5 or more jobs with posted pay.
The numbers are base pay as the company posted it. They are not the pay of a person, and they do not include stock, a bonus or benefits. For the stock and the bonus that people reported, see Reported pay.