Senior Staff / Staff Software Engineer, Trust & Safety
Chicago, IL, USA; San Francisco, CA, USA $223k – $373k/yr
agileembeddedDirect from employer 4d ago
Software Engineer salary in Chicago
What employers are offering right now, from 40 live Software Engineer postings in Chicago that publish a pay range. Updated October 2026.
Median
$189k
a year, base pay
Middle half
$153k–$216k
25th to 75th percentile
Highest posted
$298k
range midpoint
How the offers are spread
$75k
$103k
$131k
$159k
$187k
$214k
$242k
$270k
Software Engineer pay by level
| Level | Median | Postings |
|---|---|---|
| Senior | $212k | 17 |
| Staff & principal | $230k | 9 |
Top-paying companies for Software Engineer roles
| Company | Median | Postings |
|---|---|---|
| DriveWealth | $248k | 2 |
| EvolutionIQ | $240k | 2 |
| Databricks | $216k | 5 |
| Okta | $214k | 2 |
| Chime | $181k | 7 |
| tastylive | $160k | 3 |
| tastytrade | $160k | 3 |
| Zoro | $140k | 5 |
| Forum Ventures | $120k | 2 |
| Palantir | $119k | 2 |
Highest-paying open Software Engineer jobs
All 57 open jobs →Principal Software Development Engineer, Post Trade
Office - Chicago $250k – $280k/yr
javasqlmysqlkafkaDirect from employer Jan 16
EvolutionIQRemote
Staff Software Engineer (Insurance Tech)
New York, Chicago, or Remote $245k – $270k/yr
pythonjavascripttypescriptdata scienceDirect from employer Jul 22
Senior Forward Deployed Engineer - Okta for AI Agents
Bellevue, Washington; Chicago, Illinois; San Francisco, California; Toronto, Ontario, Canada $200k – $275k/yr
machine learningDirect from employer May 28
Staff Quantitative Developer
Office - Chicago $220k – $240k/yr
kafkab2bembeddedDirect from employer 15d ago
Staff Full Stack Engineer, GTM Systems
Austin · Chicago Full-time $214k – $245k/yr
pythontypescriptpostgresqlsnowflakeDirect from employer Jun 8
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Software Engineer salary: common questions
- What is the average Software Engineer salary in Chicago?
- The median midpoint of 40 live Software Engineer postings in Chicago is $189k a year. Half of them fall between $153k and $216k.
- How does Software Engineer pay change with seniority?
- senior postings $212k. Staff, principal and director roles usually pay more and often add equity.
- Which companies pay Software Engineer roles the most?
- Among companies with at least two postings, the highest medians are at DriveWealth ($248k), EvolutionIQ ($240k), Databricks ($216k), Okta ($214k).
- Where do these numbers come from?
- From the pay ranges employers publish in their own job postings (required in states such as California, Colorado, New York, Washington and Illinois). We take the midpoint of each range, convert hourly pay at 2,080 hours a year, and update the figures daily as postings open and close. They show base pay, not bonus or equity.
Other salaries in Chicago
- Solutions Engineer · $211k
- Cybersecurity · $203k
- Legal & Compliance · $200k
- Product Manager · $198k
- AI & Machine Learning · $191k
- DevOps Engineer · $189k
- Sales · $174k
- Data Analyst · $161k
- Product & UX Designer · $161k
- Marketing · $157k
- HR & Recruiting · $152k
- Program Manager · $151k
- Operations · $148k
- Customer Success · $144k
- Finance & Accounting · $123k
Find jobs
JobApplyPilot reads employers' own job postings. Pay shown is base salary from published ranges, not total compensation.