Data engineers build and operate the data pipelines and warehouses that power analytics and machine learning. Based on 4,478 certified H-1B and PERM filings from U.S. Department of Labor disclosure data, the median sponsored salary for a Data Engineer is $145,000 per year.
| Percentile | Annual salary |
|---|---|
| 10th (entry) | $103,475 |
| 25th | $120,890 |
| 50th (median) | $145,000 |
| 75th | $163,966 |
| 90th (senior) | $186,805 |
Every other salary site shows the LCA-posted wage — the wage for the position. Using USCIS I-129 petition data, we can compare that against the actual pay the sponsored worker received, and the prevailing-wage floor, across 451 matched Data Engineers petitions.
The median worker is paid 4.6% above the posted LCA wage, but the mean actual pay runs 3.6% above the mean posted wage — so the upside is concentrated in the top earners. 26.6% are paid above their posted wage, 71.8% at it, and 1.6% below.
Actual-pay data covers FY2021–FY2024 cap-subject H-1B lottery petitions matched to certified LCAs (aggregates only). Base wage excludes equity and bonuses, so it is not total compensation. Source: I-129 petition data sourced from USCIS, obtained by Bloomberg.
Of 4,478 filings, 100 are H-1B (temporary work visa) and 4,378 are PERM (green-card labor certification, 98% of the total).
| # | Employer | Filings | Avg. salary |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CAREMARK LLC | 84 | $125,967 |
| 2 | WAL-MART ASSOCIATES, INC. | 76 | $133,185 |
| 3 | COMPUNNEL SOFTWARE GROUP, INC | 69 | $134,262 |
| 4 | Deloitte LLP | 62 | $112,568 |
| 5 | META PLATFORMS, INC. | 57 | $184,160 |
| 6 | AETNA RESOURCES LLC | 46 | $133,501 |
| 7 | TIKTOK INC. | 45 | $179,087 |
| 8 | NIKE, Inc. | 37 | $148,569 |
| 9 | APPLE INC. | 34 | $166,570 |
| 10 | UNITED SERVICES AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION | 31 | $146,740 |
| 11 | ERNST & YOUNG LLP | 30 | $154,013 |
| 12 | OPTUM SERVICES, INC. | 30 | $132,606 |
| 13 | FMR LLC | 26 | $145,611 |
| 14 | CITIBANK, N.A. | 25 | $160,304 |
| 15 | TikTok U.S. Data Security Inc. | 25 | $178,702 |
| 16 | Cisco Systems Capital Corporation | 24 | $165,267 |
| 17 | DoorDash, Inc. | 24 | $175,424 |
| 18 | ROCKET MORTGAGE, LLC | 23 | $113,913 |
| 19 | IBM CORPORATION | 22 | $163,422 |
| 20 | TEKINVADERZ LLC | 22 | $102,556 |
| State | Filings | Avg. salary |
|---|---|---|
| California | 203 | $166,984 |
| Texas | 134 | $139,499 |
| New York | 116 | $151,528 |
| Virginia | 70 | $126,625 |
| New Jersey | 69 | $137,266 |
| Illinois | 51 | $132,047 |
| Massachusetts | 49 | $151,811 |
| Florida | 43 | $122,327 |
| North Carolina | 42 | $133,166 |
| Georgia | 41 | $137,072 |
| Washington | 33 | $176,090 |
| Ohio | 19 | $129,281 |
Specific titles employers file under this occupation. Click through for a per-title salary profile.
Salaries are the certified offered annual wage on public U.S. Department of Labor H-1B (LCA) and PERM disclosure filings, not a guarantee of pay. Occupation is the DOL-assigned Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) code.