Skills › infra
Kubernetes jobs: demand and pay (October 2026)
1,960 open data & AI postings at 891 companies mention Kubernetes, or 14.9% of all data & AI postings we track (as of October 18, 2026).
14.9%share of data & AI postings
891companies hiring
$202Kmedian pay, US (n=598)
—week over week (needs more history)
Kubernetes pay by level
| Level (from title) | Median pay | Postings with pay (n) |
|---|---|---|
| Entry / junior | — | 5 |
| Mid (II) | $143K | 10 |
| Senior | $193K | 178 |
| Staff / lead | $232K | 145 |
| Principal | $238K | 39 |
| Manager | $242K | 28 |
| Director+ | — | 8 |
| Level not stated | $182K | 185 |
Median of the published range midpoint, US postings in USD, annualized. Shown only when n ≥ 10; “—” means fewer.
Roles that ask for Kubernetes
| Role | Postings | % of that role |
|---|---|---|
| AI Engineer | 769 | 20.4% |
| Machine Learning Engineer | 544 | 27.5% |
| Data Engineer | 362 | 20.4% |
| Data & AI leadership | 84 | 7.9% |
| Data Architect | 57 | 14.4% |
| Database Engineer / DBA | 52 | 17.1% |
| Data Scientist | 44 | 2.9% |
| AI Research Scientist | 29 | 6.7% |
| Analytics Engineer | 13 | 3.5% |
| Data Governance & Quality | 3 | 1.4% |
| Data Analyst | 2 | 0.2% |
| BI Developer / Analyst | 1 | 0.7% |
The weekly Data Skills Index
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How it's measured: a posting counts if its title or description matches the Kubernetes patterns in our taxonomy. Postings by the vendor itself are excluded. See the methodology.