Site Reliability Engineer Salary Guide 2025

Key takeaways

Site reliability engineers (SREs) typically earn a six-figure incomes. A few things to know:

• Glassdoor reports the average SRE salary to be $166,123 per year.

• Site reliability engineer salary ranges generally increase with experience, advanced education and training, or employment at larger corporations.

• You can increase your salary by gaining in-demand skills and additional credentials to show your commitment to continued learning.

Learn more about site reliability engineer salaries and the factors that typically affect pay in the following article. If you're ready to gain an overview of the technical and cultural fundamentals of SRE from an industry leader, enroll in Google's Developing a Google SRE Culture course. You could earn a shareable certificate for your resume and LinkedIn profile in as little as seven hours.

Site reliability engineering salary

According to Glassdoor, the average annual salary for a site reliability engineer in the US is $166,123 [1]. However, many factors can affect your salary.

Level of experience 

Your years of experience can significantly impact your earning potential. Glassdoor lists the following average annual salary ranges for SREs in the US by years of experience [1]:

• Up to one year of experience (entry-level site reliability engineer salary): $95,000-$161,000

• 1–3 years of experience (entry-to-mid-level site reliability engineer salary): $106,000-$178,000

• 4–6 years of experience (mid-level site reliability engineer salary): $122,000-$196,000

• 7–9 years of experience (senior site reliability engineer salary): $129,000-$204,000

Location

An SRE’s salary can also vary by location because each city has a different cost of living. The areas that typically offer higher wages are major cities with greater living expenses. Large cities pay well above the average annual wage, while other cities’ salaries align with the average. The top 10 highest-paying cities for SREs, along with their average annual salaries, are as follows, according to ZipRecruiter [2]:

• Nome, AK: $164,469

• Cupertino, CA: $163,574

• Mercer Island, WA: $162,378

• Berkeley, CA: $162,340

• Redwood City, CA: $162,329

• Sitka, AK: $159,720

• South San Francisco, CA: $159,322

• San Bruno, CA: $158,395

• Sunnyvale, CA: $157,735

In-demand skills to consider

The skills you need for an SRE career include programming and computer languages, but you’ll also need communication and problem-solving skills. You may work as part of a team, so you must work well with others. Technical skills include using version control and monitoring tools, distributed computing, strong operating systems knowledge, and coding. 

Payscale reports that having the following skills can increase a site reliability engineer’s salary between 2 and 22 percent [3]:

• Google Cloud Platform: 19 percent

• Go: 22 percent

• Kubernetes: 8 percent

• Puppet: 7 percent

• Amazon Web Services (AWS): 4 percent

• DevOps: 3 percent

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux: 2 percent

Company

SREs can work in-house or remotely, which offers you the flexibility to earn more working for a large company in a busy city from your location in a lower-cost city. 

You can typically find SRE positions nationwide; many large corporations hire on-site and remote SREs. Glassdoor reports top SRE salary ranges from the following companies:

• Cisco: $181,000–$259,000

• Google: $250,000–$393,000

• LinkedIn: $226,000–$343,000

• Microsoft: $179,000–$258,000

• IBM: $129,000–$177,000

• JPMorgan Chase: $134,000–$194,000

• Target: $134,000–$200,000

• Cohesity: $151,000–$213,000

• VMware: $198,000–$285,000

• Apple: $215,000–$321,000

*Note: The above salaries reflect Glassdoor’s total pay figures, which is a combination of base pay plus additional compensation, such as profit sharing and bonuses.

Career advancements as a site reliability engineer

Pursuing a graduate degree or certification is a good start when seeking to advance your SRE career. You can also transition into closely related fields, including software engineering or DevOps engineering. 

Advancement by years of experience:

• Five years: You may be able to advance to a lead site reliability engineer with an annual income of $111,000 to $166,000 [4].

• Five to seven years: You might become a site reliability engineer manager, with a yearly salary range of $151,000 to $230,000 [5].

• Eight years: You may qualify for a principal site reliability engineer position, with an annual salary range of $203,000 to $308,000 [5]. Advancement to a senior manager of site reliability engineering is also possible. The typical annual salary range is $215,000 to $329,000 [5]. 

• Ten years: The most advanced SRE positions include director of site reliability engineering, with an annual wage of $219,000 to $340,000, and senior principal site reliability engineer, with an annual salary of $235,000 to $359,000 [5].

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