Who Is Hiring Systems Engineers — And What They Pay

Systems Engineers earn a median of $140,000 per year, with most postings between $117,237 and $180,950. From 287 job postings that disclosed pay, across 92 companies, August 2026.

These are ranges employers published in their own job postings — not salaries people typed into a form years ago.

Who is hiring Systems Engineers

15 companies with open postings in this sample.

Google
$216,000 3
Apple
$214,000 23
Akina, Inc.
$200,500 14
Northrop Grumman
$195,500 5
Cherokee Federal
$193,500 3
Columbia Technology Partners
$190,000 3
First Citizens Bank
$184,500 3
Anduril
$170,000 5
Rippling
$160,000 4
Pratt & Whitney
$156,000 7

Also hiring: Raytheon, Amazon.com, Apple, Collins Aerospace, L3Harris, Akina, Inc., KBR, Base-2 Solutions, LLC, Lockheed Martin, Quantum Sky, GE Aerospace, Thermo Fisher Scientific.

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15 companies in this sample have Systems Engineer postings open right now.

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What Systems Engineers earn

10th $86K 25th $117K median $140K 75th $181K 90th $203K
$66K $232K

Each bar is a pay band; height is how many employers post in it.

What Systems Engineer postings actually ask for

Ranked by how many of the 400 posting descriptions mention them.

Systems Engineering 37%
U.S. Citizenship 23%
Technical Documentation 17%
Electrical Engineering 16%
Configuration Management 13%
System Integration 13%
Research and Development 10%
Operating Systems 10%
Technology Solutions 9%
Project Execution 9%
Project Planning 9%
Department of Defense 9%
Acceptance Testing 9%
Electrical Systems 9%
Mechanical Engineering 8%
Verification and Validation 8%
Power Systems 7%
Design Development 7%

Systems Engineer vs adjacent roles

Roles people compare this one against, taken from what they search.

  • software engineer
  • systems administrator
  • mechanical engineer
  • industrial engineer
  • network engineer
  • systems architect

Remote vs onsite pay

Median of remote-eligible postings against the rest.

Remote-eligible
$126,000
Onsite
$155,000

120 remote-eligible postings against 170 onsite. Onsite pays 18.7% more in this sample.

Pay by experience level

Level is taken from the posting title, so only postings that state one are counted.

Mid
$100,000 17
Senior
$126,000 71
Lead / Manager
$192,000 13
Principal / Staff
$175,000 41

Pay by location

Metros with at least three salaried postings.

Annapolis Junction, MD
$196,000 18
Austin, TX
$187,850 12
Remote, US
$130,000 9
Tucson, AZ
$156,000 9
New York, NY
$160,000 7
Huntsville, AL
$156,000 7
Tewksbury, MA
$126,000 7
Seattle, WA
$132,250 7
Aurora, CO
$155,500 6
East Hartford, CT
$156,000 6
Herndon, VA
$143,925 5
El Segundo, CA
$138,600 5

Where this data comes from

  • 400 live postings analysed
  • 287 (72%) published a salary range
  • 145 (36%) were remote-eligible
  • 140 distinct employers
  • Requirements read from 400 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