Technology · Level IC2

DevOps Engineer

Builds and runs CI/CD, cloud infrastructure, and containers. Scripting automates, but reliability judgement and incident response stay human.

Typical total compensation (US)

$163,000median

Range $143,000–$190,000 · base $135,000 · bonus $10,000 · equity $18,000

Indicative, sourced ranges — not a guarantee. Glassdoor/KORE1 2026 DevOps base $130-143k avg; Levels.fyi DevOps median total ~$154k; maps loosely to BLS 15-1252 (May 2025) band

At a glance

Difficulty

Medium

Hiring demand

High

Competition

Medium

AI task-risk

Medium

AI & this role: Scripting/config automatable, but reliability judgement and incident response remain; AIOps augments rather than replaces. The move is to climb the scope ladder, not to fear the tool.

What differentiates you at this level

toolingCI/CD + infrastructure-as-code
toolingCloud platform fundamentals (AWS/GCP/Azure)
toolingContainers + Kubernetes

Where this leads — your highest-value routes

Ranked by pay ceiling. Progression is driven by scope and level transitions, not tenure.

Staff Platform Engineerup to $433,000

$163,000 now → $393,000 in 7 yrs

Senior Site Reliability Engineerup to $287,000

$163,000 now → $255,000 in 3 yrs

Credentials that help

Credentials help entry and specialisation; they don't gate senior or leadership roles — scope does.

CS / related bachelor's degree · $10k-$40k+/yr public in-state to private; highly variable
AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) · ~$150
Google Cloud Associate Cloud Engineer · ~$125
Microsoft Azure role-based cert (AZ-104/204/305) · ~$165

See the full DevOps Engineer pay breakdown by metro →