Read this first: about the SOC 17-2199 bucket
The BLS does not publish a dedicated occupational code for "Robotics Engineer." The closest bucket is SOC 17-2199 (Engineers, All Other), which combines robotics engineers with controls engineers, automation engineers, mechatronics engineers, biomedical engineers (partially), photonics engineers, agricultural engineers, marine engineers, and other titles that don't fit into one of the named engineering SOCs (mechanical, electrical, chemical, civil, industrial, etc.).
Every number in this report sourced from BLS OEWS is for that combined bucket, not for "Robotics Engineer" specifically. What that means in practice:
- The $122,930 median understates pay for the specific "Robotics Engineer" job title, because the bucket includes lower-paying titles (smaller-shop automation engineers, municipal controls engineers, ag and marine roles) that pull the median down.
- Posted-wage data from Indeed, Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter, and Levels.fyi for the "Robotics Engineer" title clusters roughly $10K-$30K above the SOC median, depending on sub-discipline.
- State and metro tables sourced from this bucket are still useful for relative-geography signal (where pay is high vs low) but should not be taken as the literal robotics-engineer-only number in any specific state.
The right way to read this page: use the BLS tables as the floor and the geographic signal, then use the sub-discipline, employer, and skills sections for the realistic posted-wage number you should be negotiating against.
National pay breakdown: every percentile, annual & hourly
The BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey is the single most authoritative wage dataset in the US, it covers roughly 1.2 million establishments and is mandatory for sampled employers to complete. The May 2025 release was published 2026-04-30. Here is the full national distribution for SOC 17-2199 (read with the bucket caveat above in mind):
| Percentile | Annual wage | Hourly wage | Typical profile |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10th | $66,810 | $32.12/hr | Entry, small-shop integration, lower-cost market |
| 25th | $90,970 | $43.73/hr | 1-3 years, BS in engineering, single-vendor exposure |
| 50th (median) | $122,930 | $59.10/hr | Mid-level, 4-7 years, full ownership of robot cell or subsystem |
| 75th | $158,090 | $76.01/hr | Senior at large OEM, specialist in ROS / motion / perception |
| 90th | $189,950 | $91.32/hr | Staff / principal, surgical robotics, federal-contractor lead |
| Mean | $125,330 | $60.26/hr | Pulled above median by senior tech-adjacent and federal-contractor roles |
Source: BLS OEWS May 2025, national cross-industry estimate for SOC 17-2199 (national_M2025_dl.xlsx, released 2026-04-30).
These annual figures assume year-round full-time employment (2,080 hours). Robotics engineering roles at large public employers (Amazon Robotics, Tesla, Apple, Nvidia, Intuitive Surgical) often layer 15-40% in equity (RSUs) on top of base, and signing bonuses of $20K-$60K are common at the senior level. At humanoid robotics startups, base is typically $150K-$220K with equity packages that on paper look comparable to large-employer RSUs but carry materially higher dilution and exit risk.
By experience level: entry, mid, senior, staff
The BLS OEWS doesn't publish wages by years-of-experience. The table below combines BLS percentile distribution with Levels.fyi and Glassdoor posted compensation data for the "Robotics Engineer" title at large public employers (Tesla, Amazon Robotics, Apple, Nvidia Robotics, Intuitive Surgical):
| Level | Years | Base (large public) | Total comp |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry (L3 / new grad) | 0-2 | $95K-$130K | $115K-$160K (small RSU + sign-on) |
| Mid (L4 / 'Robotics Engineer') | 3-6 | $130K-$165K | $170K-$230K (RSU vests stack) |
| Senior (L5 / 'Sr Robotics Engineer') | 6-10 | $160K-$210K | $220K-$310K |
| Staff (L6) | 10-15 | $200K-$270K | $310K-$480K |
| Principal (L7+) | 15+ | $240K-$330K | $430K-$700K+ |
Base and TC bands aggregated from Levels.fyi data for Amazon Robotics, Apple, Nvidia Robotics, Tesla, and Meta Reality Labs (robotics engineer titles), 2026-05-28. Industrial-integration shops and surgical-robotics employers fall below the upper end of these bands at the same level; humanoid startups fall above the base column on paper but with materially more equity risk.
Honest read of the level bands. The bands above describe what large publicly-traded employers actually pay for a Robotics Engineer who works on ROS / motion / perception / SLAM at scale. They are higher than what a typical industrial-integration shop pays a "Robotics Engineer" with the same years of experience, often by $20K-$40K base. They are also higher than what most academic-research and small-company roles pay. The fastest way to move from the lower end of these bands toward the upper end is to specialize: pick one of the sub-disciplines in the next section and go deep, not wide.
By sub-discipline: where the pay actually splits
"Robotics Engineer" is a job title that covers five very different jobs. Pay varies by $80K-$150K between the lowest and highest sub-disciplines at the same seniority level. Picking your sub-discipline is the single biggest in-career decision for total compensation:
| Sub-discipline | Mid-level base | Senior base | Representative employers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Industrial integration | $95K-$130K | $125K-$160K | FANUC, ABB, KUKA, Yaskawa, Universal Robots, automotive OEM integrators |
| Mobile robotics (AGV / AMR) | $110K-$150K | $150K-$200K | Amazon Robotics, Symbotic, Locus Robotics, Berkshire Grey, Geek+, AutoStore, Nuro |
| Surgical robotics | $130K-$180K | $175K-$240K | Intuitive Surgical, Stryker (Mako), Medtronic (Hugo), J&J (Monarch / Ethicon), Auris |
| Humanoid / general-purpose | $150K-$220K base | $200K-$300K base | Boston Dynamics, Tesla Optimus, Figure AI, Apptronik, 1X, Sanctuary AI, Agility Robotics |
| Defense autonomy | $120K-$170K | $160K-$220K | Anduril, Shield AI, Skydio (defense side), Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Skunk Works |
| Research / lab | $110K-$160K | $150K-$200K | NASA JPL, DARPA programs, MIT CSAIL, CMU RI, Toyota Research Institute, Google DeepMind robotics |
Bands compiled from Levels.fyi, Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter, and direct posting research for the named employers, 2026-05-28. Humanoid startup numbers are base only, total comp is highly equity-weighted, see the dedicated section below.
Humanoid startup equity reality check. A typical mid-level offer at Figure AI, 1X, or Apptronik in early 2026 might look like $180K base + $300K in 4-year equity at the company's latest preferred-share valuation. On paper that is a $255K/year TC offer, comparable to a senior role at Amazon Robotics. In reality: (1) the equity vests over 4 years assuming you stay, (2) preferred-share valuations rarely translate 1:1 to common-share liquidity, (3) further funding rounds will dilute you, (4) most early-stage humanoid companies will not exit at or above current valuation. The expected-value math depends entirely on your probability estimate for the company's exit. A reasonable rule: discount paper equity by 50-70% when comparing to liquid RSUs at a public employer.
By state: where the wages run highest and where the jobs concentrate
Two different "best state" lists matter depending on what you're optimizing for. The top-paying states for SOC 17-2199 mix high cost-of-living tech markets (California, Washington) with federal-contractor-heavy markets (New Mexico, DC, Virginia, Alabama) where defense-autonomy and lab work concentrate. The top-employment states are California, Texas, Florida, Michigan, and Maryland, the markets with actual robotics-engineer job density.
Top 10 states by mean annual wage
| Rank | State | Mean wage | Median wage | Employment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Mexico | $151,130 | $162,070 | 2,190 |
| 2 | District of Columbia | $146,600 | $151,920 | 3,560 |
| 3 | Alabama | $146,450 | $152,550 | 3,460 |
| 4 | Virginia | $145,830 | $148,160 | 5,060 |
| 5 | Alaska | $144,180 | $142,390 | 200 |
| 6 | California | $139,670 | $130,850 | 28,610 |
| 7 | Washington | $138,660 | $134,570 | 3,580 |
| 8 | Colorado | $134,930 | $132,590 | 2,540 |
| 9 | Massachusetts | $134,140 | $131,260 | 2,850 |
| 10 | New Jersey | $133,380 | $132,450 | 4,540 |
Top 10 states by total employment
| Rank | State | Employment | Mean wage | Median wage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | 28,610 | $139,670 | $130,850 |
| 2 | Texas | 10,820 | $121,890 | $115,810 |
| 3 | Florida | 8,600 | $110,430 | $105,410 |
| 4 | Michigan | 7,700 | $118,500 | $121,000 |
| 5 | Maryland | 7,340 | $129,030 | $129,770 |
| 6 | Ohio | 7,000 | $121,590 | $120,470 |
| 7 | Louisiana | 6,310 | $108,750 | $99,070 |
| 8 | New York | 5,760 | $124,360 | $117,600 |
| 9 | Virginia | 5,060 | $145,830 | $148,160 |
| 10 | New Jersey | 4,540 | $133,380 | $132,450 |
Source: BLS OEWS state estimates (May 2025), state_M2025_dl.xlsx. Total US employment for SOC 17-2199 (bucket) is 154,070 per the national release.
The New Mexico anomaly. NM mean of $151,130 is roughly 21% above the national mean, driven by Sandia National Labs, Los Alamos National Lab, Intel Rio Rancho, and the Air Force Research Lab at Kirtland AFB. Most of these roles require US citizenship and clearance (Secret, Top Secret, or Q-clearance at the labs). Alabama (Huntsville / Redstone Arsenal) and Virginia (Northern Virginia federal contractor cluster, Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren) sit in the same federal-contractor cluster. If you don't want clearance work, California, Washington, Colorado, and Massachusetts are the cleanest high-pay plays at $130K-$140K mean.
Texas is the inverse case for robotics specifically. Second-largest state by employment (10,820 in the SOC bucket) but mean wage of $121,890, slightly below the national mean. The TX SOC 17-2199 workforce skews oil & gas controls and traditional manufacturing automation; the robotics-specific clusters in Austin (Tesla Gigafactory autonomy work) and Houston (NASA Johnson, surgical robotics startups) are growing but don't yet dominate the bucket employment.
By metro: top-paying metro areas in the US
Metro-level data narrows further than state averages. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara leads at $171,140 mean (BLS OEWS May 2025), driven by the Nvidia, Apple, Google, and Meta robotics teams plus Bay Area robotics startups. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont is second at $162,570 (Boston Dynamics SF office, the wider Bay Area startup cluster, Tesla Fremont autonomy work).
| Rank | Metro | Mean wage | Employment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA | $171,140 | 4,970 |
| 2 | San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | $162,570 | 4,850 |
| 3 | Charlottesville, VA | $151,940 | 50 |
| 4 | Albuquerque, NM | $151,910 | 1,110 |
| 5 | Lexington Park, MD | $151,780 | 1,020 |
| 6 | Huntsville, AL | $150,490 | 3,110 |
| 7 | Atlantic City-Hammonton, NJ | $147,020 | 230 |
| 8 | Santa Cruz-Watsonville, CA | $146,850 | 150 |
| 9 | Boulder, CO | $145,860 | 580 |
| 10 | Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV | $145,090 | 9,230 |
Source: BLS OEWS metropolitan area estimates (May 2025), MSA_M2025_dl.xlsx.
For robotics specifically, the metros that matter for actual job density are: San Francisco Bay Area (Bay Area startups + Apple + Nvidia + Google), Boston-Cambridge (Amazon Robotics in North Reading / Westborough, Boston Dynamics in Waltham, MIT CSAIL ecosystem, Symbotic, Berkshire Grey), Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue (Amazon Robotics teams, Apptronik Seattle office, Microsoft robotics research), Pittsburgh (CMU Robotics Institute and the spinout cluster), and Austin (Tesla Gigafactory autonomy + Apptronik HQ).
By industry: where the role pays the most
Industry assignment matters. Per BLS OEWS May 2025 industry-level estimates for SOC 17-2199:
| Industry | Mean wage | Employment |
|---|---|---|
| Web Search Portals, Libraries, Archives, and Other Information Services | $219,450 | 330 |
| Publishing Industries | $172,060 | 730 |
| Oil and Gas Extraction | $155,430 | 400 |
| Insurance Carriers and Related Activities | $143,220 | 520 |
| Federal, State, and Local Government, excluding State and Local Government Schools and Hospitals and the U.S. Postal Service (OEWS Designation) | $140,310 | 38,780 |
| Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services | $123,120 | 42,750 |
| Federal, State, and Local Government, excluding State and Local Government Schools and Hospitals and the U.S. Postal Service (OEWS Designation) | $140,310 | 38,780 |
| Computer and Electronic Product Manufacturing | $129,020 | 8,340 |
| Management of Companies and Enterprises | $130,650 | 8,330 |
| Transportation Equipment Manufacturing | $117,500 | 8,060 |
Top of table: top-paying industries. Bottom of table: largest-employing industries. Source: BLS OEWS industry-specific national estimates (May 2025).
The top-paying industries in the bucket (Web Search Portals at $219,450 mean, Publishing at $172,060) reflect the very small number of robotics engineers working at Google, Meta, Apple, and Nvidia, which the BLS classifies under those NAICS codes. They are real numbers and worth chasing if you can land them, but the employment counts are tiny (a few hundred nationally) and the hiring bar is high.
The largest employers by count (Professional Scientific Technical Services at 42,750, Federal Government at 38,780, Computer/Electronic Manufacturing at 8,340, Transportation Equipment Manufacturing at 8,060, Machinery Manufacturing at 5,890) are where most postings live. Federal government (NASA, DOD, DOE national labs) pays a strong mean ($140,310) but requires clearance and accepts slower-moving research-track work. Transportation Equipment Manufacturing (auto OEMs and their robotics integrators, plus a slice of Tesla, GM Cruise, and Waymo) is where industrial-integration and autonomous-vehicle robotics work concentrates.
By employer: what specific companies pay
The BLS does not publish employer-specific wages, so this section pulls from Levels.fyi total-compensation data for robotics engineer titles and Glassdoor / posting-derived bands for employers that don't appear on Levels. Treat these as posted-data triangulation, not authoritative employer averages. Bands are TC (base + equity + bonus) at the mid-level / senior level.
| Employer | Category | Mid TC | Senior TC |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon Robotics | Mobile (warehouse) | $175K-$210K | $240K-$310K |
| Tesla (Optimus + autonomy) | Humanoid + industrial | $180K-$240K | $260K-$380K |
| Apple (Special Projects / Vision Pro) | Robotics R&D | $220K-$290K | $320K-$460K |
| Nvidia (Isaac / Robotics) | Robotics platform | $210K-$290K | $340K-$520K (RSU-heavy) |
| Meta Reality Labs | Robotics research | $220K-$300K | $330K-$480K |
| Boston Dynamics | Humanoid + quadruped | $170K-$220K | $220K-$310K |
| Figure AI | Humanoid (early-stage) | $180K-$240K base + heavy equity | $240K-$320K base + heavy equity |
| 1X Technologies | Humanoid (early-stage) | $170K-$220K base + equity | $220K-$290K base + equity |
| Apptronik (Apollo) | Humanoid (Series A/B) | $160K-$210K base + equity | $210K-$280K base + equity |
| Intuitive Surgical | Surgical robotics (public) | $170K-$220K | $220K-$300K |
| Stryker (Mako) | Surgical robotics (public) | $140K-$180K | $180K-$240K |
| Symbotic | Warehouse automation | $140K-$180K | $190K-$250K |
| Anduril | Defense autonomy | $170K-$230K | $240K-$330K |
| FANUC / ABB / KUKA (US integration) | Industrial integration | $105K-$140K | $140K-$180K |
Public-employer TC bands sourced from Levels.fyi posted compensation data for robotics engineer / robotics SWE titles, 2026-05-28. Private and pre-IPO startup figures triangulated from Glassdoor, public job postings, and reported offers; equity numbers carry materially higher uncertainty than public-employer RSU values.
The pattern that matters: at the senior level, you can clear $300K TC at Amazon Robotics, Tesla, Apple, Nvidia, or Intuitive Surgical without taking startup equity risk. Humanoid startups offer comparable or higher stated TC but discount their equity per the rule of thumb in the sub-discipline section. Industrial integration shops cap roughly $80K-$120K below the public-employer bands at the same seniority, which is the price of working with cleaner vendor tooling instead of building a full ROS / motion / perception / SLAM stack from scratch.
By skills stack: what each capability is worth at posting time
Posted-wage data from Indeed and LinkedIn job postings shows real pay deltas for specific robotics skill stacks. These are postings-medians, not BLS-authoritative, but they reflect what employers actually advertise:
- Vendor tooling only (FANUC Roboguide, ABB RobotStudio, KUKA Sim): $95K-$130K base. Common at industrial integrators.
- ROS / ROS2 + C++ (intermediate): $115K-$155K base. The base requirement for almost any non-industrial robotics role.
- ROS2 + MoveIt + OMPL (motion planning): $130K-$175K base. Motion-planning specialists are scarce.
- Perception stack (PCL, OpenCV, deep-learning vision, PyTorch): $140K-$190K base. Heavy demand from humanoid, surgical, and mobile robotics.
- SLAM + sensor fusion (LiDAR, IMU, camera): $140K-$195K base. Hot at AGV/AMR and autonomous-vehicle shops.
- Real-time embedded (C++ on RTOS, hard timing constraints): $135K-$185K base. Premium for surgical and humanoid actuator control.
- Sim-to-real (Gazebo, Isaac Sim, NVIDIA Isaac Lab, RL-based policy training): $160K-$220K base. The current frontier skill, smallest talent pool.
- Full stack (ROS2 + motion + perception + ML policy): $180K-$260K base. The combination that humanoid and surgical R&D teams pay top dollar for.
The premium pattern. Each additional layer of the stack (motion, perception, SLAM, sim-to-real, ML policy) tends to add $15K-$30K to the posted base when it's genuinely demonstrated (open-source contributions, papers, deployed projects) rather than listed as a resume keyword. The fastest credential-light way to push your pay up is to ship a substantial open-source ROS2 project (manipulation + perception + sim-to-real) that recruiters and hiring managers can verify in 10 minutes.
How to push your robotics engineer salary higher: three real levers
Lever 1: Choose your sub-discipline deliberately
The biggest single lever is the sub-discipline pick. At the same seniority, a mid-level robotics engineer working industrial integration at a FANUC integrator earns $95K-$130K base; the same engineer at a surgical robotics company earns $130K-$180K base; at a humanoid startup, $150K-$220K base. That is a $50K-$90K base delta from one career decision. The catches: surgical robotics requires comfort with FDA 510(k) and design-controls work (slow product cycles, heavy documentation); humanoid startups carry meaningful equity-vs-cash risk. The trade-off is real but the math favors moving up the sub-discipline ladder if you can tolerate the work style and the risk.
Lever 2: Build the ROS + perception + ML stack, not just resume keywords
The skills-stack section above shows a $40K-$60K base delta between "ROS / ROS2 + C++" and "Full stack (ROS2 + motion + perception + ML policy)" at the same seniority. The skill stack is teachable in 18-24 months from a starting point of ROS fluency, but it must be demonstrably real: ship a substantial open-source project that combines manipulation (MoveIt) with perception (a deep-learning vision pipeline) with sim-to-real transfer (Isaac Sim or Gazebo). Recruiters at humanoid and surgical robotics companies actively browse GitHub for this kind of project. Most working robotics engineers have ROS on their resume but cannot show working code beyond a coursework demo, which is exactly why the gap exists.
Lever 3: Take humanoid startup equity, with the math actually done
Humanoid robotics is the closest analog to early-stage SaaS startup hiring in the late 2010s: well-funded private companies bidding aggressively on talent with offers heavy in equity at preferred-share valuations that may not survive the next down round. The right way to evaluate one of these offers is to do the math honestly: take the stated equity value, discount by 50-70% for dilution + exit risk, add the base salary, then compare to a senior offer at Amazon Robotics or Intuitive Surgical (which is mostly liquid). On that math, a $180K base + $300K-over-4-years equity offer at Figure AI compares roughly equal-to-slightly-better than a $240K-$280K TC offer at Amazon Robotics, with materially higher variance. Take the startup offer if you want the equity-tail bet and the work environment; take the public-employer offer if you want predictable comp.
Robotics engineer salary vs adjacent roles
Useful for orienting your next career move:
| Role | SOC | BLS median | Education to get there |
|---|---|---|---|
| Robotics Engineer (you) | 17-2199 | $122,930 | ABET BS + ROS / motion / perception stack |
| Controls Engineer | 17-2199 | $122,930 | ABET BS + PLC / SCADA depth |
| Automation Engineer | 17-2199 | $122,930 | ABET BS + PLC + robotics integration |
| Mechanical Engineer | 17-2141 | $104,110 | ABET-EAC BS + FE |
| Electrical Engineer | 17-2071 | $120,630 | ABET-EAC BS + FE |
| Electronics Engineer (ex-computer) | 17-2072 | $123,540 | ABET-EAC BS + FE |
| Mechatronics Technician | 17-3024 | $73,900 | AAS or industry certs |
All BLS medians from OEWS May 2025. Note that robotics, controls, and automation engineers all sit inside the same SOC 17-2199 bucket and share the headline median; sub-discipline and employer choice drive most of the real-world pay split between them.
Two clean adjacent moves: (1) trade some of the robotics premium for the cleaner vendor tooling and slower pace of a controls or automation engineer role at a stable manufacturer (see our controls engineer salary guide and automation engineer salary guide), or (2) move into a specialized electrical or electronics engineering role at a sensor / actuator / motor-control company (see electrical engineer salary and mechanical engineer salary).
Frequently asked questions
What is the average robotics engineer salary in 2026?
How much do humanoid robotics engineers earn at companies like Figure AI, 1X, or Tesla Optimus?
Is ROS (Robot Operating System) worth learning for salary?
Industrial robotics vs surgical robotics vs humanoid: which pays more?
What does Amazon Robotics pay engineers?
Why is the BLS national median ($122,930) lower than typical "Robotics Engineer" job postings?
Do I need a master's or PhD to get into robotics engineering?
Sources & methodology
All wage and employment data on this page is sourced from primary US government publications and disclosed compensation data, retrieved 2026-05-28:
- BLS OEWS, 17-2199 Engineers, All Other, May 2025 national release.
- BLS OEWS state-level estimates (oesm25st.zip), used for all state tables.
- BLS OEWS metropolitan area estimates (oesm25ma.zip), used for metro tables.
- BLS OEWS industry-level estimates (oesm25in4.zip), used for industry tables.
- BEA Regional Price Parities, used for cost-of-living context.
- Levels.fyi, Amazon Robotics, used for robotics-engineer total compensation banding at large public employers.
- Levels.fyi, Tesla, used for Tesla Optimus + autonomy engineer compensation.
- Levels.fyi, Nvidia, used for Nvidia Isaac / robotics engineer compensation.
- Glassdoor, Intuitive Surgical, used for surgical robotics engineer compensation.
- Glassdoor, Boston Dynamics, used for humanoid + quadruped robotics engineer compensation.
- ZipRecruiter, Robotics Engineer, used for posted-wage skills-stack data.
- IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, for context on sub-discipline definitions and the talent landscape.
Humanoid startup compensation figures (Figure AI, 1X, Apptronik) are triangulated from public job postings, reported offers, and Glassdoor entries. Equity values at private companies are paper at preferred-share valuations and should be discounted materially against liquid public-employer RSUs.