The employers hiring engineers to build aircraft, rockets and drones post their pay, and the numbers run well ahead of what the government surveys say. The median is $159,000, the new-grad floor is six figures, and the biggest bidder is a defense startup that did not exist a decade ago.
By WingmanPro Research · Published August 31, 2026
On August 31, 2026, aerospace, defense and space employers had 10,659 engineering jobs posted on WingmanPro. 6,461 of them state a pay range, a 60.6 percent disclosure rate against a 48.0 percent average across all aviation jobs on the board. Among priced listings the median is $159,000, with the middle half running from $130,000 to $192,500. One framing note before the tables: these are engineering jobs at aerospace employers, which is broader than the single occupation the government tracks under the same name, and the mix leans toward defense and space companies because that is who is hiring.
Of 6,461 priced engineering listings, exactly 12 carry the literal title "aerospace engineer," and they post a $112,035 median, well under the market. The industry hires by discipline: software, systems, mechanical, electrical. If you searched the term that brought you here and found thin results on the big boards, this is why. The job exists everywhere. The title barely does.
| Discipline | Priced listings | Median posted pay |
|---|---|---|
| Software and firmware | 1,433 | $190,000 |
| Systems | 625 | $162,000 |
| Guidance and controls (GNC) | 168 | $160,000 |
| Electrical and avionics | 584 | $155,000 |
| Mechanical | 416 | $155,000 |
| Structures and stress | 161 | $150,000 |
| Propulsion | 118 | $149,500 |
| Manufacturing and quality | 800 | $139,500 |
| Test | 274 | $137,500 |
Software tops the table by $28,000, and it is not because aerospace companies became tech companies. Autonomy did it. Anduril, Shield AI, Zipline and Skydio build aircraft whose most expensive component is the code, so they pay for code. The traditional core of the field, structures, propulsion and test, sits $40,000 to $52,500 below the software bench. Same industry, same buildings, very different offers.
Entry and new-graduate listings post a $100,000 median across 317 priced openings. Unmarked mid-level roles post $137,500, senior and lead titles $170,000, and principal or staff titles $210,000 across 689 listings. That six-figure first rung deserves a pause. A new A&P mechanic enters an $88,400 median market and a working pilot needs years of instruction flying before the captain seat pays $212,750. An engineering degree walks into aerospace at $100,000, and reaches the level of a captain's pay without anyone's life in the seats behind them.
| Employer | Priced listings | Median posted pay |
|---|---|---|
| Anduril Industries | 1,557 | $170,000 |
| SpaceX | 849 | $137,500 |
| Boeing | 767 | $132,000 |
| Shield AI | 279 | $185,000 |
| Relativity Space | 261 | $165,000 |
| Zipline | 241 | $185,000 |
| Rocket Lab | 222 | $143,500 |
| Archer | 163 | $171,000 |
The top of the pay table belongs to smaller autonomy shops: Reliable Robotics posts a $215,000 median across 54 priced listings, Skydio $205,000 across 56, Muon Space $193,000 across 68. The old guard is present but quieter about money. RTX has 1,775 open engineering listings on the board and prices 12 of them. Boeing prices 767 of 828. When half of aviation job listings still hide the pay, engineering is the family where hiding it costs the most, because the companies that do disclose are bidding $30,000 to $80,000 over the incumbents.
| State | Priced listings | Median posted pay |
|---|---|---|
| California | 3,590 | $168,750 |
| Washington | 521 | $141,000 |
| Colorado | 397 | $147,500 |
| Missouri | 235 | $132,000 |
| Texas | 207 | $155,000 |
| Massachusetts | 184 | $193,000 |
California holds more than half of the priced market by itself, at a $168,750 median. The surprise is Massachusetts at $193,000, the highest state median on the board, on the strength of Boston-area autonomy and defense work. Missouri at $132,000 is mostly Boeing St. Louis. As with aircraft mechanics, the state premium is industry mix wearing a geography costume.
Not one with a posted base salary. Across 6,461 priced listings the highest credible postings sit in the $300,000s: a Shield AI principal engineer at a $343,200 midpoint, an Anduril senior director at $339,000. Engineers who clear $500,000 at SpaceX or Anduril do it on equity, and equity does not appear in a job listing.
18 current listings post a midpoint at or above $300,000, and 161 post a range that tops out there. Nearly all are principal, staff or director titles in software, autonomy and special programs. The path to $300,000 in posted pay is seniority in code, not seniority in airframes.
The degree has one of the heavier math loads in engineering, and defense work adds clearance hurdles. The market's answer is that difficulty is priced in: a $100,000 median for brand-new graduates is the compensation for surviving the coursework.
In 2026, mostly not what the textbook says. Of the priced listings, 1,433 are software and firmware roles, 800 are manufacturing and quality, and only 279 mention structures, stress or propulsion in the title. The center of the field has moved from calculating wing loads to writing the code that flies the aircraft.
Snapshot of listings posted on WingmanPro on August 31, 2026, matched by titles containing "engineer" excluding flight engineer crew roles. Pay figures are medians of posted ranges, midpoint of each range, annualized with the board's standard factors, outliers excluded outside $20,000 to $2,000,000. Discipline and seniority cuts match on title terms; state cuts use the listing's posted state. Two listings with implausible six-figure midpoints on junior titles were treated as posting errors and excluded from the top-pay examples. Refreshed monthly.