Compare Engineering Archetypes Side by Side
The archetype you land in matters as much as the company you land at. Pick a few engineering archetypes and line them up side by side: pay, the day-to-day work, the qualities each one actually rewards, and real postings from companies hiring for it. Choose a career level and a company tier to see how the picture shifts.
Check any 5 roles below to compare them side by side.
1
Forward Deployed Engineer
$203k2
Product / Full-Stack Software Engineer
$201k3
Security Engineer
$197k4
Solutions Architect (Vendor-Side)
$197k5
ML Engineer
$190k6
Sales Engineer / Pre-Sales Engineer
$187k7
Technical Product Manager
$186k8
Platform / Infrastructure Engineer
$185k9
Consulting Engineer / Professional Services Engineer
$185k10
SRE / Production Engineer
$184k11
Mobile Engineer (iOS / Android)
$180k12
Data Engineer
$179k13
Solutions Architect (Consulting-Side)
$178k14
Developer Relations / Developer Advocacy
$170k15
Embedded / IoT Engineer
$163k16
Customer Success / Customer Solutions Engineer
$135k17
Customer Support Engineer
$123kL3 (3–6 yrs) · High-growth public · total comp (base + bonus + annualized equity) · P25–P75 band, P50 median · axis to $270k
Directional context only, not financial advice. Figures aren't a live feed of US individual-contributor total-comp submissions — see the methodology for sources and confidence levels.