Tech Salaries in Seattle 2026: What Engineers Actually Earn
Seattle pays top-tier tech salaries without San Francisco rent - here is the full breakdown by role
Seattle has quietly become one of the best cities in the world to be a tech worker. Not just because of the salaries - which are among the highest anywhere - but because of what you actually keep after taxes and rent.
No state income tax. Cost of living meaningfully below San Francisco. A tech ecosystem anchored by Amazon and Microsoft, with Google, Meta, Snowflake, Stripe, and hundreds of startups filling in the gaps. And unlike remote-first companies that adjust salaries by location, Seattle-based roles pay top-of-market rates because they are competing with FAANG for the same talent pool.
Here is what every major tech role actually pays in Seattle in 2026.
Cloud Architect - $140K-$230K+
Cloud architects in Seattle earn some of the highest salaries in the city, driven by massive cloud infrastructure demand from Amazon (AWS), Microsoft (Azure), and the companies building on their platforms. Salary range: $140K-$230K+ Median: ~$175KSeattle is arguably the global capital of cloud computing. AWS was born here. Azure is built in Redmond. This creates a unique concentration of cloud architecture roles that simply does not exist at the same scale in any other city. Senior cloud architects with multi-cloud expertise (AWS + Azure + GCP) and infrastructure-as-code skills regularly command $200K+ base salaries before stock and bonus.
The demand is structural - every enterprise is migrating workloads, and Seattle has the deepest talent pool of people who have actually built cloud infrastructure at hyperscaler scale.
ML Engineer - $130K-$210K
Machine learning engineers in Seattle benefit from the city's AI and machine learning concentration, particularly at Amazon (Alexa, AWS SageMaker, recommendation systems) and Microsoft (Azure AI, Copilot, OpenAI partnership). Salary range: $130K-$210K Median: ~$165KThe AI boom has pushed ML engineer salaries up significantly since 2024. Teams working on large language models, recommendation engines, and computer vision at Amazon and Microsoft compete directly with Bay Area AI labs for talent - and pay accordingly. Applied ML roles (ranking, personalization, forecasting) are particularly well-compensated because they directly drive revenue.
Mid-level ML engineers with 3-5 years of experience and production ML systems on their resume typically earn $150K-$180K. Senior/Staff ML engineers working on foundational models or large-scale inference systems push well above $200K.
Backend Engineer - $120K-$200K
Backend engineers in Seattle are in consistently high demand. Amazon alone has thousands of backend engineering roles across its retail, AWS, and advertising divisions. Salary range: $120K-$200K Median: ~$155KWhat makes Seattle's backend market distinctive is the scale of the systems. Amazon processes billions of transactions. Microsoft runs services for hundreds of millions of users. Backend engineers here work on distributed systems, microservices architectures, and data pipelines that handle traffic volumes most engineers never encounter.
This means the interview bar is high - system design is heavily weighted - but the compensation reflects it. Engineers with experience in high-throughput distributed systems, event-driven architectures, or database optimization at scale are particularly valued.
DevOps Engineer - $125K-$190K
DevOps engineers in Seattle earn premium salaries driven by the city's cloud-native infrastructure culture. When two of the three major cloud providers are headquartered here, DevOps expertise is not optional - it is table stakes. Salary range: $125K-$190K Median: ~$150KSeattle DevOps roles tend to be more senior and specialized than in other markets. Companies expect Kubernetes, Terraform, and CI/CD pipeline expertise as a baseline. Roles focused on platform engineering, site reliability (SRE), and infrastructure automation command the highest salaries. DevOps engineers who can bridge the gap between infrastructure and security (DevSecOps) are particularly scarce and well-compensated.
Data Scientist - $115K-$190K
Data scientists in Seattle work across a range of industries - tech, retail, healthcare, and finance - but the highest-paying roles are concentrated at Amazon, Microsoft, and their ecosystem companies. Salary range: $115K-$190K Median: ~$145KAmazon is one of the largest employers of data scientists globally, with roles spanning supply chain optimization, advertising, Alexa, and AWS. These are applied data science roles that require production-grade statistical modeling and experimentation at scale. Microsoft's data science teams focus on product analytics, Azure AI, and enterprise solutions.
Data scientists with strong engineering skills (Python + SQL + production ML) earn significantly more than those focused purely on analysis. The line between data scientist and ML engineer continues to blur, and candidates who straddle both command premium compensation.
Software Engineer - $110K-$195K
Software engineers in Seattle span every specialization, from frontend to infrastructure. The overall salary range is broad because the role itself is broad - but the floor is high. Salary range: $110K-$195K Median: ~$150KNew grad software engineers at Amazon and Microsoft start at $110K-$130K base (plus significant stock grants). Mid-level engineers with 3-5 years of experience typically earn $140K-$170K. Senior and staff engineers command $175K-$195K+ in base salary, with total compensation reaching $250K-$350K+ at FAANG companies.
Seattle's software engineer market benefits from extreme employer diversity. If Amazon or Microsoft is not the right cultural fit, there are hundreds of mid-size companies and startups hiring software engineers at competitive rates.
Product Manager - $120K-$190K
Product managers in Seattle work at the intersection of engineering and business strategy, and the city's tech density creates abundant opportunities. Salary range: $120K-$190K Median: ~$150KAmazon's "two-pizza team" structure means there are more PM roles per capita than at most tech companies. Each team needs a product owner, creating a large and diverse PM market. Microsoft similarly has extensive PM organizations across its product portfolio.
Technical PMs - those who can read code, understand system architectures, and speak engineering language - earn at the top of the range. PMs working on platform products (AWS, Azure, developer tools) tend to earn more than those on consumer-facing products.
Frontend Engineer - $105K-$180K
Frontend engineers in Seattle earn strong salaries, though typically 5-10% below backend engineers at equivalent levels - a pattern that holds across most US tech markets. Salary range: $105K-$180K Median: ~$140KThe highest-paying frontend roles are those involving complex application architecture (not just component building). Engineers working on web performance optimization, design systems at scale, or rich interactive experiences command premium compensation. React, TypeScript, and Next.js dominate the Seattle frontend stack.
Companies like Amazon (retail frontend, advertising console), Microsoft (Office web apps, Azure portal), and Snowflake (data visualization) have large frontend teams working on applications with millions of daily active users.
Data Engineer - $115K-$185K
Data engineers in Seattle are essential to the city's data-heavy tech ecosystem. Amazon, Microsoft, and virtually every mid-size tech company needs data pipeline infrastructure. Salary range: $115K-$185K Median: ~$145KSeattle data engineers work with some of the largest datasets in the world. Amazon's data infrastructure processes petabytes daily across retail, advertising, logistics, and cloud services. This creates demand for engineers who can build and maintain data pipelines at extreme scale using tools like Spark, Kafka, Airflow, and cloud-native services.
Data engineers with experience in real-time streaming, data lakehouse architectures, or ML feature engineering earn at the top of the range.
Why Seattle Pays So Well
Three factors make Seattle uniquely attractive for tech compensation:
No state income tax. Washington has no personal income tax. A senior engineer earning $180K in Seattle takes home roughly $15K-$20K more per year than the same salary in California. Over a career, this compounds dramatically. Employer competition. Amazon and Microsoft alone employ tens of thousands of engineers in the Seattle metro area. Add Google (Kirkland), Meta, Snowflake, Stripe, Expedia, Zillow, and hundreds of startups, and you have an employer market where companies must pay competitively or lose talent. This floor-raising effect benefits everyone, not just FAANG employees. Lower cost of living than SF. Median rent in Seattle is roughly 20-30% below San Francisco. A two-bedroom apartment that costs $4,500/month in SF runs $3,000-$3,500 in Seattle's best neighborhoods. Combined with no state tax, the purchasing power advantage is substantial.Seattle vs Other Tech Hubs
| Factor | Seattle | San Francisco | New York | Austin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Senior engineer salary | $170K-$200K | $180K-$220K | $160K-$200K | $140K-$175K |
| State income tax | 0% | 9-13% | 4-11% | 0% |
| Median 2BR rent | $3,200 | $4,200 | $4,000 | $2,200 |
| Tech employer density | Very high | Very high | High | Medium |
| Take-home winner? | ✅ Best ratio | Lowest after tax+rent | Mid-tier | Lower salary |
When you factor in taxes and cost of living, Seattle arguably offers the best financial deal in US tech. San Francisco pays slightly more in nominal terms but the tax hit and housing costs erase the difference. Austin has lower costs but also lower salaries and fewer employer options.
The Bottom Line
Seattle is not a "cheaper alternative" to San Francisco. It is a top-tier tech market in its own right - home to two of the world's largest tech companies, a deep talent ecosystem, and compensation that matches or exceeds most other US cities once you account for taxes and living costs.
If you are considering a move to Seattle or evaluating an offer, benchmark your specific role against our salary data:
Or compare Seattle against other top tech markets: San Francisco (highest raw salaries but heavy taxes), New York (finance-tech crossover), Austin (another no-tax state), Toronto (Canada's tech hub in CAD), or see the global picture in our highest paying tech jobs ranking.
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