National Salary Overview
The first row is the United States across companies. The next rows are single employers, sorted by median total compensation. Each number is total compensation (base + stock + bonus) from that page's summary paragraph.
| Company | Median total comp | Level range | Submissions |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States, all companies | $217,000 | Not stated in the summary | 1,214 |
| Databricks | $410K | $245K (L3) to $522K (L7) | 279 |
| Amazon | $325K | $170K (L4) to $439K (L7) | 3,043 |
| Snowflake | $270K | $193K (IC1) to $338K (IC6) | 53 |
| Salesforce | $240K | $150K (Associate) to $278K (Principal) | 256 |
These medians come from the submission counts in the last column. Snowflake's median is based on 53 submissions, a small sample next to Amazon's 3,043.
Base vs Total Compensation
At big tech, stock and bonus can be a third or more of pay, so base-salary sites show lower numbers. On the Databricks solution architect page, the L3 row lists $129K base salary inside $245K total compensation.
Tim's Take: What the Data Doesn't Tell You
A total compensation median assumes the stock and bonus in that submission. Ask how the stock vests before you treat the median as cash you will see in year one.
The word senior in a title does not tell you the pay. The company rows above are why the employer matters more than the title.
Interviewers ask about AI systems. The pages checked for this guide do not publish a separate premium for those skills, so this page does not quote one.
Career Progression
If you are early in the move, start with how to become a solutions architect. The order below is the path this page already described. The dollar amounts that used to sit on each step are gone, because no public page stated those ranges.
The standard path
- Years 1 to 3: solutions engineer or associate solutions architect
- Years 3 to 5: solutions architect
- Years 5 to 8: senior solutions architect
- Years 8 to 12: principal solutions architect
The faster path
- Years 1 to 3: cloud engineer, and earn a cloud certification
- Years 3 to 4: solutions architect at a cloud provider, where you work with customers directly
- Years 4 to 6: solutions architect at a product company
- Years 6 to 8: senior solutions architect at a company that pays at the top of the table above
Cloud-provider experience is the credibility stamp recruiters look for. People use it to move to companies like Snowflake and Databricks. The pay at those companies is the table above, not a range I estimated for the step.
What interviews ask you to explain
In recent solutions architect interviews I have been asked to whiteboard retrieval-augmented generation. The shape they want is this:
Enterprise documents go to an embedding model, then a vector database.
A user query is embedded, searched, and sent to the model with the retrieved context.
Chunk size, overlap, how many results you keep, and whether you rerank are the trade-offs.Courses people use while they prepare, with no pay claim attached:
- Ultimate AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02 2026 by Stephane Maarek.
- Learning DevOps with Terraform by Edward Viaene.
- GitHub Actions - The Complete Guide by Academind.
If you want an AI credential first, here is how I passed the AWS Certified AI Practitioner in two weeks.
How to Negotiate SA Compensation
Read the company page for the employer before you counter. Use the median and the level range from that page, and say whether you are talking about total compensation or base salary.
- When they ask for a number early, say you want to understand the role first and that you can talk pay once you both know it is a fit.
- Let them make the offer. Their number shows the band they had in mind.
- Counter with the specific Levels.fyi page for that company, not a blended range.
- If base salary is capped, ask about a sign-on bonus, equity, or the level on the offer.
Ask how the equity vests. A median that includes stock can overstate the cash in the first year when the vest is backloaded.
2026 Salary Trends
The sourced pages change daily, which is why each figure above carries the date it was checked. What those pages do not show is a forecast. This update does not guess a growth rate.
Two things still change how an offer feels next to the median. Unvested stock makes leaving expensive, so a sign-on bonus is the usual way companies close that gap. And the work that is hard to hand to a model is still the conversation with the executive who has to approve the design.
FAQ
Titles vary by company. A solutions architect often covers on-premises systems, hybrid systems, and the business requirement. A cloud architect focuses on AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. In practice the work overlaps. Read the job description, not the title.
Yes, if you can still go deep on systems. A common path is IT support or systems administration, then cloud engineering, then solutions architect. You do not write production code every day. You do need to read a design, compare trade-offs, and talk with engineers. See How to Become a Solutions Architect.
The Levels.fyi and Glassdoor pages checked for this guide do not state a pay bump for a certification. Use a certification to get the interview. This page does not quote a dollar amount for one.
Ask for remote or hybrid when the work is customer meetings and design reviews, and offer a set number of travel days for on-site visits. If the company requires a full-time office and will not discuss it, treat that as part of the offer.
The sourced pages do not publish a separate premium for soft skills. The medians on this page are total compensation for the title. The job still includes explaining a design to the person who signs the contract.
Price the unvested stock, then ask whether a sign-on bonus closes enough of that gap to make the move worth it. The company medians on this page are total compensation, so compare the new offer on that same basis, not base salary alone.
Next Steps
- Open the Levels.fyi page for the company you are targeting and read the median, the level range, and the submission count.
- Decide whether the offer in front of you is total compensation or base salary. The Databricks L3 row above is the comparison.
- If you are not in the role yet, follow How to Become a Solutions Architect.
- Build something you can walk through. The Solutions Architect portfolio projects are one place to start.
Related Guides
- Tech Careers Without Coding: 2026 Salary Guide
- How to Become a Solutions Architect
- Cloud Resume Challenge
- Solutions Architect Portfolio Projects That Get You Hired
- Software Engineer Exit Strategy
- Cybersecurity Careers Without Coding
Methodology
Checked October 13, 2026. Company and national figures are the summary paragraph on each Levels.fyi page linked in the table. They are United States total compensation, which Levels.fyi describes as base salary plus stock plus bonus. Glassdoor's $221K is that page's median total pay. The Glassdoor page title says 2026 and does not show a separate as-of date in the text recorded for this guide.
Figures on those sites change daily. A number here is the summary on the day it was checked, not a promise about an offer you will get next month.
This update does not quote ZipRecruiter. Its AWS page does not say whether the figure is base salary or total compensation. It does not quote BLS, which has no occupation named solutions architect. City pay, cloud-platform pay by level, certification premiums, and consulting rates were removed because each row could not be tied to one public page.