Counted October 17, 2026 · from employers’ own postings
Systems Engineer: $151K median posted pay.
From 752 salary bands employers posted on 1,183 open systems engineer roles in software engineering. Never an estimate.
The ladder, by level
What each rung pays.
| Level | Open roles | Median posted band | Middle half |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senior | 323 | $165K | — |
| Principal | 132 | $162K | — |
| Staff | 64 | $208K | — |
| Mid | 51 | $112K | — |
| Junior | 14 | $94K | — |
| Intern | 6 | — (1 of 8 bands) | — |
| Management | 4 | — (3 of 8 bands) | — |
Levels as the postings name them. A rung shows a median only where eight or more postings at that level carried a band.
Who is hiring
The employers with the most open.
| Employer | Open roles | Entry level |
|---|---|---|
| Northrop Grumman | 136 | — |
| RTX | 133 | — |
| Anduril Industries | 74 | — |
| KBR | 41 | — |
| Amentum | 33 | — |
| Leidos | 30 | — |
| Gdit | 29 | — |
| Bah | 28 | — |
| Cloudflare | 26 | — |
| Booz Allen Hamilton | 23 | — |
Counted from employers’ own job boards. The ten with the most open systems engineer roles tonight.
The skills, as the postings name them
What these postings ask for.
| Skill | Postings | At entry |
|---|---|---|
| Python | 335 | — |
| System Architecture | 232 | — |
| TypeScript | 223 | — |
| Electrical Engineering | 201 | — |
| Linux Administration | 180 | — |
| Investigation | 167 | — |
| Technical Documentation | 160 | — |
| Physics | 153 | — |
| Risk Management | 145 | — |
| Continuous Improvement | 142 | — |
Where the work is
4% of these roles are remote.
- Remote4%42 roles
- Hybrid4%44 roles
- On site79%935 roles
- Not stated14%162 roles
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How this was counted
Every figure is counted from 1,183 open postings read from employers’ own job boards on October 17, 2026, and recounted every night. Pay is the band the employer posted — never an estimate, never a model — and 752 of these postings carried one. Titles are grouped by the words the postings use, with levels, shifts and schedules removed, so “Senior Systems Engineer (Nights)” counts here too. 100% of roles with this title sit in software engineering, which is why this page belongs to that career. A title gets a page only where twenty-five or more roles are open, eight or more of them posted a band, three or more employers are hiring for it and four in five of its postings sit in one career, so no page here is a guess.