AN-084 Careers · pillar
Hardware Engineer Salary in 2026: By Level, Company, and City
Hardware engineer salary from BLS May 2025 data and levels.fyi: median pay, bands by level at Google, Meta, Apple and Nvidia, and pay by US city.
by the HardwareMap editors8 min read
Contents
The median hardware engineer salary in the United States was $161,740est a year in May 2025, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. That figure covers the 76,100 jobs BLS counts as computer hardware engineers. Self-reported total compensation runs higher. This careers hub sorts both by level, company type and city, and links to the hardware startups hiring now.
HardwareMap (hardwaremap.com) is a hand-sorted directory of hardware startups building robots, rockets, reactors, chips and the tools to make them, catalogued like parts on a datasheet.
This page uses two sources and keeps them apart. The first is the federal wage survey: large, audited, wages only. The second is levels.fyi, a self-reported database that includes stock and bonus. Every band below names its source and date. Salary bands move with each survey, so each figure is marked for verification and should be checked against the source before you quote it in a negotiation.
Hardware engineer salary in the BLS data
BLS publishes two products for this job. The Occupational Outlook Handbook page for computer hardware engineers (last modified August 2026) gives the headline numbers. The underlying wage survey, OEWS, gives the percentiles. Both use May 2025 data.
The percentiles come from the O*NET local wages table for occupation 17-2061, which republishes the BLS 2025 wage data by state and metro.
Three things to know before you use these numbers.
It is wages only. The OEWS FAQ states that its estimates "represent wages and salaries only, and do not include nonproduction bonuses or employer costs of nonwage benefits." Stock bonuses are excluded too. At a public tech company or a well-funded startup, stock is often a large part of the package, so BLS understates what senior engineers there take home.
It is a narrow job code. BLS code 17-2061 covers engineers who design computer systems, processors, circuit boards, memory and networking hardware. A mechanical engineer designing a robot arm, or a power electronics engineer on a battery pack, is filed under a different code. Those codes have lower medians:
Sources: BLS handbook pages for electrical and electronics engineers and mechanical engineers.
It is national. The median blends a chip designer in Santa Clara with a test engineer in a lower-cost metro. The city section below splits it out.
Salary by level: what self-reported data shows
BLS does not publish pay by seniority. The closest public proxy is levels.fyi, where engineers report base, stock and bonus by company and level. Its hardware engineer page shows a US median total compensation of $226,250est, with the 25th percentile at $165,000est, the 75th at $314,000est and the 90th at $417,000est.
The gap from the BLS median, about $65,000, is mostly stock and bonus, plus a sample tilted toward large tech employers in high-cost metros.
By level, at four large employers of hardware engineers (median total compensation, US, levels.fyi, updated 2 Oct 2026):
Sources: levels.fyi hardware engineer pages for Google, Meta, Apple and Nvidia. The band labels are ours; companies do not map levels one to one, and Nvidia's ladder starts at IC1, so its rungs sit one step offset from the others.
How to read the table:
- The entry rung is close to the BLS 75th percentile. A new graduate at these four companies reports roughly what a mid-career engineer earns in the BLS survey. That is the stock and the metro, not the base salary alone.
- The jump from senior to staff is the largest step. It is also where the stock share grows. Equity vests over years, so the yearly number assumes the share price holds.
- Sample sizes differ. Levels.fyi lists 789 Google, 550 Meta, 3,112 Apple and 1,196 Nvidia hardware engineer submissions. Thin samples at the top levels make those medians the least reliable cells in the table.
Pay by company type: big tech, chips, startups
BLS splits the median by industry. For computer hardware engineers in May 2025, research and development firms paid a median of $171,820est, the information sector $169,030est, semiconductor and electronic component makers $166,150est, computer systems design firms $155,470est, and the federal government $136,990est. The spread between them is narrower than the spread between cities.
Self-reported data shows a wider spread, because stock varies more than salary. Levels.fyi names Broadcom ($492,000est), Google ($364,750est) and Apple ($346,500est) as the top-paying US employers of hardware engineers by median total compensation.
Startups sit lower and vary more. A few companies in the index have enough levels.fyi submissions to quote, each with its sample size:
Sources: levels.fyi pages for Anduril, Rivian and Skydio. Under 20 submissions, a median moves a lot with each new entry. Read these as direction, not a band.
Two structural points explain the gap.
- Private stock is priced, not paid. A startup grant is valued at the last round price. It cannot be sold until a tender, an acquisition or a listing, and a down round can cut it. Rivian and Joby are public, so their stock is liquid; Anduril and Skydio are private.
- Hardware teams carry more non-engineering cost. Tooling, test and inventory compete with salaries for the same raise. Earlier-stage companies often trade cash for options. Our funding stage breakdown shows where each index company sits; ask for both numbers.
The largest teams in the index, where most hardware hiring happens:
The full list of index companies with open roles, and links to their careers pages, is in hardware startup jobs.
Hardware engineer salary by city
Metro data is where BLS is most useful. The table gives the May 2025 median and the 10th to 90th percentile range for computer hardware engineers in the US metros that host the most hardware startups, with the number of index companies in each hub.
Source: O*NET local wages, 17-2061, BLS 2025 wage data. Index counts are live from the HardwareMap index; BLS metro lines and our hub lines are drawn differently, so treat the last column as context.
What the table says:
- The Bay Area pays a premium of about $42,000 to $48,000 at the median over the national figure. It also has the largest cluster of hardware startups in the index, so it is where most offers will come from. Our Bay Area hardware startups note lists them.
- Los Angeles pays close to the national median for this job code, despite its aerospace and defense cluster. Much of that work is filed under aerospace, mechanical and electrical codes, not 17-2061, so the hardware engineer median there undercounts what a launch or drone company pays.
- Austin, Boston and Seattle sit within a few thousand dollars of each other. At those levels, cost of housing decides the real gap more than the salary does.
For every hub outside the US, BLS has no data, and we do not substitute estimates. The hardware startups by hub note covers where the companies are in Bengaluru, Shenzhen, Munich and London.
Where the hardware engineering jobs are, by category
Job titles at hardware startups are broader than the BLS code. One posting for "hardware engineer" can mean board design, mechanical design, test or manufacturing. Which one depends on what the company builds, and the index groups companies the same way, by what they ship.
- Chips and compute. The 44 companies in the silicon category hire the people BLS code 17-2061 was written for: RTL, verification, physical design, packaging and board bring-up. This is the closest match to the BLS median, and the large chip employers on levels.fyi set the pay reference.
- Robots and autonomous machines. The 34 companies in robotics hire mechanical, electrical, firmware and controls engineers. Expect titles like actuator engineer, motor control engineer and perception hardware engineer.
- Aerospace and defense. The 33 companies across aerospace and defense hire avionics, RF, propulsion and structures engineers. Defense roles may require US citizenship and a security clearance, which narrows the candidate pool.
- Energy. The 17 companies in energy need power electronics, battery, magnet and plasma engineers. Fusion and fission companies hire physicists into engineering roles.
- Consumer devices and wearables. Companies in consumer and health hire for small enclosures, antennas, low-power boards and high-volume manufacturing transfer, often working with contract manufacturers in Asia.
Two roles cross every category. Test engineers write the fixtures and scripts that decide whether a unit ships. Manufacturing engineers move a design from prototype to a production line and own the yield. Neither title is in BLS code 17-2061, so neither shows up in the median above.
How to read a hardware startup offer
A hardware startup offer usually has three parts: base salary, an option or stock grant, and sometimes a signing bonus. The BLS median is the right benchmark for the first. The levels.fyi bands are the right benchmark for the total, at a public company. Neither prices the grant.
Questions that turn a grant into a number you can compare:
- How many fully diluted shares are outstanding? A grant of shares means nothing without the denominator.
- What was the last preferred price, and what is the strike price? Options are worth the gap, not the preferred price.
- What is the exercise window after you leave? A short window forces you to buy or forfeit soon after leaving; a longer one costs you less if you leave before a liquidity event.
- How much runway does the company have? A hardware company spends on tooling and inventory before revenue. Our hardware startup funding note covers how rounds are sized.
Check the company itself before the offer. Each index company has a datasheet with founding year, HQ, disclosed funding, stage, investors and an estimated team size. A team that doubled in a year is hiring into a funded plan. A team that shrank is worth a question.
Continue with Robotics Engineer Salary: Startups vs Big Tech and Hardware Startup Equity: What Engineers Should Ask.
Frequently asked questions
What is the average hardware engineer salary in the US?
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median annual wage of $161,740 for computer hardware engineers in May 2025. The middle half earned between $126,090 and $202,990. These are wages only: they leave out stock and nonproduction bonuses, so total compensation at a public tech company or a funded startup usually runs higher than the BLS figure.
What is the difference between a computer hardware engineer salary and a hardware engineer salary?
Computer hardware engineer is the federal job title, code 17-2061, that BLS surveys. Hardware engineer is the job title most employers post. Many hardware engineers are classified by BLS as electrical, electronics or mechanical engineers instead, with lower medians. Self-reported sites like levels.fyi group them under one title and include stock, which is why their medians sit higher.
What is the Google hardware engineer salary?
Levels.fyi shows Google hardware engineer total compensation in the United States from about $209,000 at L3 to about $758,000 at L7, with a median package of about $365,000 across 789 submissions, as of October 2026. The figures are self-reported and include base, stock and bonus. Treat them as a negotiation reference, not an offer.
What is the Meta hardware engineer salary?
Levels.fyi shows Meta hardware engineer total compensation in the United States from about $178,000 at IC3 to about $835,000 at IC7, with a median package of about $320,000 across 550 submissions, as of October 2026. Meta's hardware teams build Reality Labs devices and data center systems. Stock is a large share of the package at senior levels.
Which US city pays hardware engineers the most?
In BLS May 2025 data, the San Jose, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara metro pays computer hardware engineers a median of $209,860, followed by San Francisco and Oakland at $203,890. Both sit well above the national median of $161,740. Housing costs in both metros are also among the highest in the country, so compare offers after rent.
Do hardware startups pay less than big tech?
In cash, usually yes at the same level. Startups make up the difference with equity, which is illiquid until an acquisition or listing and can be worth nothing. Self-reported medians on levels.fyi for index companies such as Rivian and Skydio sit below the Google and Apple medians. Anduril, a late-stage private company, reports medians closer to big tech.
HardwareMap lists the hardware companies these salaries are paid at. Open any company datasheet in the index, starting with the robotics category, to check stage, funding and team before you apply.
Everything in careers1 notes
The index
All 219 startups, filterable by category, hub, stage and funding.