What 9,495 Job Postings Say About Semiconductor Pay
One salary number does not tell you much about the semiconductor job market. A cleanroom technician, process engineer, verification engineer and chip architect do very different work, often in very different locations.
We recently organized the salary data in our job index into a new set of US semiconductor salary benchmarks. The current snapshot covers 9,495 active US postings with employer-published pay from 122 companies.
A few numbers that stand out
Silicon architecture and microarchitecture have the highest median advertised base salary among the major disciplines in the sample at $210,000.
Other current medians include:
- Physical design: $182,000
- Analog and mixed-signal IC design: $178,500
- Digital and RTL design: $176,000
- Design verification: $174,000
- Embedded software and silicon firmware: $165,000
- Silicon test, ATE and product engineering: $152,000
Fab and manufacturing roles need their own comparison. Process integration engineering has a median of $156,000, while fab module process engineering sits at $142,000. Equipment and tool maintenance engineering has a median of $128,000.
Cleanroom manufacturing technicians are reported separately because they are generally paid hourly. Their current median is $31.50 per hour, with the middle portion of published ranges running from approximately $24 to $41 per hour.
Experience makes a large difference
The progression by career level is just as noticeable:
- Junior and associate engineer: $112,000
- Mid-level engineer: $148,000
- Senior engineer: $182,000
- Staff and principal engineer: $218,000
- Senior principal and fellow: $262,000
These figures should be treated as market reference points, not predictions of an individual offer. Companies use engineering titles differently, and compensation varies by location, experience and technical specialty.
What the figures include
Our wider index tracks more than 39,000 active positions across 183 semiconductor employers. This analysis uses the US postings that contain usable employer-published compensation.
The figures cover advertised base pay only. They do not include equity, bonuses, signing incentives or benefits. We also require at least 30 qualifying postings from at least 15 employers before publishing a discipline benchmark. This reduces the chance that one or two companies will distort the result.
The full tables, methodology and career-level comparisons are available in our US semiconductor salary benchmarks. The current figures reflect the November 10, 2026 snapshot.
If you have questions about the data, want a more detailed breakdown, or want to make sure your company’s jobs are included in the SemiconductorJobs.com job index, contact us.