Principal Data Engineer salary (October 2026)
Only 11 Principal Data Engineer postings have a published US pay range as of October 24, 2026, fewer than the 30 we need before we show a median. 2% of Data Engineer postings with pay are at this level.
Small sample: only 11 postings have published pay, fewer than 30, so no median is shown yet. This page is not indexed by search engines until it reaches 30.
Data Engineer pay by level
| Level (from title) | Median pay (US) | n with pay |
|---|---|---|
| Mid (II) | — | 12 |
| Senior | $178K | 178 |
| Staff / lead | $190K | 75 |
| Principal | — | 11 |
| Level not stated | $152K | 234 |
Based on 510 postings with pay. A dash means fewer than 30 list pay.
Principal pay across data & AI roles
| # | Role | Median pay (US) | n with pay |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Machine Learning Engineer | $259K | 39 |
| 2 | AI Engineer | $246K | 42 |
| — | Data Scientist | — | 23 |
| — | Data Architect | — | 23 |
| — | Data Engineer | — | 11 |
Based on 138 postings with pay. A dash means fewer than 30 list pay.
How it is measured: median of the published pay range midpoint, US postings in USD, annualized (hourly × 2,080). Level comes from title words only. Medians are shown when n ≥ 30; “—” means fewer than 30 postings with pay. Data: CSV · JSON. See the methodology. Back to Data Engineer or all roles.