Security Engineer Skills and Job Description (October 2026)
Certified Information Systems Security Professional is asked for by 39% of Security Engineer employers, the most common requirement across 300 live postings read in October 2026. Then Python, AWS, Azure.
Median posted pay is $135,500, most postings between $110,850 and $180,694 — from 234 postings that disclosed it, across 53 companies.
Posted pay is down 9.4% since 2026-09-07 ($149,506 → $135,500).
These are ranges employers published in their own job postings — not salaries people typed into a form years ago.
What Security Engineer postings actually ask for
Ranked by how many of the 300 posting descriptions mention them.
Certified Information Systems Security Professional39%
Python34%
AWS29%
Azure26%
Cloud Security26%
Incident Response24%
NIST24%
SIEM23%
IAM21%
Vulnerability Management20%
Software Engineering19%
Network Security17%
SQL16%
Terraform16%
CI/CD16%
Java14%
Security Operations14%
Application Security13%
Information Systems13%
PowerShell13%
Security Clearance11%
Certified Ethical Hacker11%
Threat Intelligence11%
DevSecOps11%
Would your background clear the bar?
These are the requirements Security Engineer postings list. Paste one of those postings and your résumé — FitToHire checks you against every requirement and shows the evidence behind each verdict.
15 companies in this sample have Security Engineer postings open right now.
Each bar is a pay band. Height is how many of the 53 employers who published a salary fall in it, counted once each.
Pay bands in numbers
Employer median pay by band
Pay band
Employers
$70,000–$87,900
7
$87,900–$105,800
5
$105,800–$123,700
8
$123,700–$141,600
7
$141,600–$159,500
8
$159,500–$177,400
3
$177,400–$195,300
7
$195,300–$213,200
2
$213,200–$231,100
1
$231,100–$249,000
5
Total
53
Security Engineer vs adjacent roles
Roles people compare this one against, taken from what they search.
security analyst
software engineer
network engineer
cyber security engineer
security architect
soc analyst
Remote vs onsite pay
Median of remote-eligible postings against the rest.
Remote-eligible
$146,756
Onsite
$151,487
40 remote-eligible postings against 210 onsite. Onsite pays 3.1% more in this sample.
Pay by experience level
Level is taken from the posting title, so only postings that state one are counted.
Mid
$180,50012
Senior
$156,60062
Lead / Manager
$156,60040
Principal / Staff
$177,80015
Pay by location
Metros with at least three salaried postings.
Seattle, WA
$180,50013
San Francisco, CA
$156,6009
Arlington, VA
$180,8508
New York, NY
$156,6007
McLean, VA
$139,6506
Boston, MA
$156,6006
Austin, TX
$156,6005
San Antonio, TX
$122,7005
Denver, CO
$122,7005
Jacksonville, FL
$129,5005
San Jose, CA
$156,6005
San Diego, CA
$122,7005
Where this data comes from
300 live postings analysed
234 (78%) published a salary range
44 (15%) were remote-eligible
70 distinct employers
Requirements read from 300 full posting descriptions
Each employer gets one vote in the median, so a company running a large hiring campaign cannot move it
Ranges are converted to annual figures; hourly and contract postings are normalised before comparison
How the requirements were read
Requirements are not keyword counts. Each posting is read by our extraction engine, which works out what the employer is actually asking for and separates a requirement from a section heading or a line of boilerplate. Two postings asking for the same thing in different words are counted once, because our skills graph knows which phrasings mean the same thing and which imply others.
The share beside each requirement is the percentage of distinct EMPLOYERS in that sample who asked for it, counted one vote per company so a firm posting the same role many times cannot inflate its own requirements. Measured, not estimated, and read from the posting text rather than counted as keywords.
Because every reading is dated, the movement figures above are real month-over-month change. Sites built on self-reported salaries cannot produce that number: their data has no posting date.