Digital Realty Data Center Salary 2026: $76k – $195k
Digital Realty publishes its pay. On September 2, 2026 the company posted $37.50 to $41.00 an hour for a Site Engineer I in Ashburn, Virginia, about $78,000 to $85,280 a year, and $52.73 to $54.80 an hour for a Lead Engineer. Digital Realty’s median employee earned $121,174 in 2025, a figure the company files with the SEC.
Those are Digital Realty’s own numbers. Every band on this page was read off a live posting on the Digital Realty careers site on September 2, 2026, from a sweep of all 186 open requisitions worldwide.
Digital Realty prints a pay range on half its open United States jobs, 38 of 76 on that date. It also files a median employee compensation figure, an executive compensation table and an employee headcount with the Securities and Exchange Commission every year. Almost nobody quotes any of it, which is why most Digital Realty salary figures online come from anonymous submissions to crowd-sourced sites.
This guide covers the full Site Engineer ladder from entry to Market Technical Manager, why Digital Realty’s technician title means something different from what you expect, the director and senior director bands, what the CEO makes, where Digital Realty is hiring right now, and how its pay compares against Google, Amazon, QTS, Microsoft, Meta and Equinix.
Digital Realty data center salary: the key numbers
- $37.50 to $41.00 an hour, the published band for a Site Engineer I in Ashburn, Virginia, about $78,000 to $85,280 a year at 2,080 hours (Digital Realty job posting 8400, read September 2, 2026)
- $52.73 to $54.80 an hour, the published band for a Lead Engineer, identical at Ashburn and Sterling, Virginia, about $109,678 to $113,984 a year (Digital Realty job postings 8555 and 8597, read September 2, 2026)
- $170,000 to $195,000 a year, the published band for a Market Technical Manager, the senior field operations job, identical in Ashburn, Virginia and Piscataway Township, New Jersey (Digital Realty job postings 8644 and 8592, read September 2, 2026)
- $121,174, the annual total compensation of Digital Realty’s median employee in 2025 (Digital Realty 2026 proxy statement, filed with the SEC on April 17, 2026)
- $21,071,498, the 2025 total compensation of President and Chief Executive Officer Andrew P. Power, which is 174 times the median employee (2026 proxy statement)
- 38 of 76 open United States postings carried a published pay range on September 2, 2026, four times the rate at the closest comparable colocation operator (Digital Realty careers site, read September 2, 2026)
Digital Realty publishes the pay band on its own job postings
Near the bottom of most Digital Realty job descriptions sits a paragraph most candidates scroll straight past. It reads like this, word for word:
Digital Realty wraps one qualifier around it. The published range is “the minimum and maximum target for new hire pay for the full-time position determined by role, level, and geographical location,” individual pay depends on job-related skills, experience, education and training, and total compensation “may include salary, cash bonus or commissions, and equity awards not quantified below.”
Three things follow from that. The range is a real new-hire target rather than a market estimate. The bonus and the equity are real but unpublished, so no total compensation figure appears on this page as a fact. And the range is set by role and level first, geography second, which turns out to matter a great deal at Digital Realty.
The catch is coverage. Of 76 open United States jobs on September 2, 2026, 38 carried a range. The other 38 published nothing. This page keeps the requisition number beside every figure so you can tell which is which.
For a read on how Digital Realty compares against the market as a whole, see the national data center technician salary guide.
The Digital Realty site engineer ladder in 2026
Digital Realty runs one ladder on the data center floor and it is not called technician. The posted titles are Site Engineer I, Site Engineer II and Site Engineer III, then Lead Engineer, Manager Engineering Operations, Manager Data Center Operations and Market Technical Manager. Every band below came off a live posting.
| Rung, as Digital Realty posts it | What Digital Realty requires | Published band | Where it was read | Annualized at 2,080 hrs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Site Engineer I | At least 1 year in mission critical facilities operating or engineering, with expertise in either electrical or mechanical work | $37.50–$41.00 / hr | Req 8400, Ashburn VA | $78,000–$85,280 |
| Site Engineer I | Same posting language | $36.50–$38.36 / hr | Req 8632, Seattle WA | $75,920–$79,789 |
| Site Engineer II, also posted as Critical Facilities Engineer II | At least 3 years in mission critical facilities operating or engineering | $42.30–$45.83 / hr | Req 7440, Needham MA | $87,984–$95,326 |
| Site Engineer III | At least 5 years in mission critical facilities operating or engineering | $48.00–$51.00 / hr | Req 7789, Sterling VA | $99,840–$106,080 |
| Lead Engineer | Associate’s degree or equivalent, a trade licence or technical certification, a facilities maintenance certification, second or third shift plus one weekend day | $52.73–$54.80 / hr | Req 8555 Ashburn VA and Req 8597 Sterling VA | $109,678–$113,984 |
| Manager Engineering Operations | 5 years of facility management in data center operations. Supervises the site engineers, owns the site SOPs, MOPs and EOPs | $56.00–$62.00 / hr | Req 8405, Ashburn VA | $116,480–$128,960 |
| Manager Data Center Operations | 10 years in data center operations or a related engineering field, 5 of them leading teams in a large-scale mission critical environment | $140,000–$155,000 / yr | Req 8428, Virginia | Posted as salary |
| Market Technical Manager | Bachelor’s degree plus 10 years of related experience, or 15 years of data center experience in lieu of a degree | $170,000–$195,000 / yr | Req 8644 Ashburn VA and Req 8592 Piscataway NJ | Posted as salary |
How we built this table. Every band was read from a live Digital Realty job posting on September 2, 2026, from a sweep of all 186 open requisitions worldwide. Digital Realty states the figure as a “Compensation range” and describes it as “the minimum and maximum target for new hire pay for the full-time position determined by role, level, and geographical location.”
Rows show the requisition number the band was read from. Annualized figures multiply the posted hourly rate by 2,080 hours and are arithmetic on our part, not a Digital Realty figure. Digital Realty states that total compensation may include a cash bonus and equity awards, and publishes no target for either below its three named executive officers, so no total compensation figure appears on this page as a fact.
Digital Realty prices the job, not the campus
The Lead Engineer band is $52.73 to $54.80 an hour in Ashburn, Virginia. At Sterling, a different campus, it is $52.73 to $54.80 an hour. Not close. Identical, to the cent.
The same holds up the ladder and down it. Market Technical Manager is $170,000 to $195,000 in Ashburn and identical in Piscataway Township, New Jersey, two markets with very different costs of living. Technician II is $38.00 to $40.50 in Ashburn and identical in Franklin Park, Illinois.
That is the opposite of how the closest comparable operator prices work. At QTS, the same Critical Operations Technician I title runs $8.18 an hour apart between two campuses in the same state, as the QTS data center salary guide sets out. Digital Realty appears to run a national rate card by role and grade.
The one place geography does move the number is outside the eastern corridor. Site Engineer I in Seattle, Washington posts at $36.50 to $38.36 an hour. The entire Seattle band sits below the midpoint of the Ashburn band for the same job.
The ladder pays 10 to 12 percent a rung, all the way up
Site Engineer I to Site Engineer II is a 12.3 percent step at the midpoint. II to III is another 12.3 percent. III to Lead Engineer is 8.6 percent. Lead Engineer to Manager Engineering Operations is 9.7 percent.
There is no jackpot rung and no dead end. Floor to ceiling, the whole engineering ladder runs $75,920 to $128,960 at 2,080 hours. If you want a predictable number and a visible next step, that is what Digital Realty is offering. If you want one big jump, it is not here.
The first line of management is paid by the hour
Manager Engineering Operations, the job that directly supervises the site engineers and signs off the site procedures, posts at $56.00 to $62.00 an hour. It is an hourly role. The next rung up, Manager Data Center Operations, is salaried at $140,000 to $155,000.
Run the arithmetic on that crossover. A Manager Engineering Operations at the top of the band earns $128,960 at 2,080 straight-time hours. To match the floor of the salaried job above it takes roughly 119 hours of overtime a year, about two and a half hours a week.
For anyone weighing the two, the hourly job with overtime is closer to the salaried one than the headline numbers suggest, and it carries less scope. That is worth knowing before you chase the title.
Half the postings publish a range
Thirty-eight of 76 open United States Digital Realty jobs carried a published band on September 2, 2026. At QTS the figure was 36 of 288, about one in eight.
Digital Realty is four times more transparent about pay than the nearest comparable colocation operator. That is a real advantage for a candidate, because you can walk into the first recruiter call already knowing the floor and the ceiling.
Digital Realty Site Engineer salary
Site Engineer is the job most people mean when they search for a Digital Realty technician salary. It is the mechanical and electrical role on the data center floor.
Site Engineer I pay
Two of the six open Site Engineer I postings published a band on September 2, 2026:
- Ashburn, Virginia: $37.50 to $41.00 an hour, about $78,000 to $85,280 a year
- Seattle, Washington: $36.50 to $38.36 an hour, about $75,920 to $79,789 a year
The other four published no range: Carrollton Texas, Chandler Arizona and Hillsboro Oregon on two separate postings.
What Digital Realty asks for
At least one year of experience in mission critical facilities operating or engineering, or equivalent equipment experience. That experience needs to be against generators, uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems, HVAC systems, fire and life safety systems, building management systems (BMS) and computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS).
Digital Realty adds one honest line about the skill mix: the candidate is expected to have expertise in either electrical work or mechanical work, and to be competent in whichever one is not their specialty. You do not need both to apply. You need one, properly.
There is no degree requirement at Site Engineer I. The degree language does not appear until Lead Engineer, and even there it is an associate’s degree “or an equivalent combination of education and experience.”
How the grades step up
Site Engineer II asks for at least three years. Site Engineer III asks for at least five. The job description is otherwise word for word the same across all three grades, which tells you the grade is about depth and independence rather than a different set of duties.
One naming point worth knowing. The Needham, Massachusetts posting is titled “Critical Facilities Engineer II or Site Engineer II,” both names on the same requisition. At Digital Realty the two titles describe one job. If you have been searching one and not the other, you have been seeing half the board. The critical facilities engineer salary guide covers what the rest of the industry pays for that role.
Lead Engineer, and the shift you actually work
Lead Engineer is the top of the individual contributor ladder at $52.73 to $54.80 an hour, and it is the rung where the requirements change shape. Digital Realty asks for an associate’s degree or an equivalent combination of education and experience, a trade licence or certification acquired through technical education, and a facilities maintenance certification.
It also states the shift plainly, which most employers do not: “the willingness to work 2nd or 3rd shift, at least one weekend day each week, and unscheduled overtime as needed to complete projects or break-fixes.” Coverage is 365 days a year, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, and the posting says you will work at least 40 hours per week.
Digital Realty publishes no shift differential on any posting. If a recruiter quotes you a night or weekend premium, get it in the written offer.
Digital Realty data center technician salary
Digital Realty uses the word technician for a job most people searching are not looking for, and this trips up almost every salary page written about the company.
The job Digital Realty calls Technician II is a Remote Hands Technician. It is a colocation customer service role: racking and stacking customer equipment, cabling, cross connects, and responding to customer requests inside a service level agreement. The posting says the Remote Hands Technician II works with the deployment and implementation teams, the Global Command Center, provisioning and project management.
Digital Realty posted it at $38.00 to $40.50 an hour on September 2, 2026, about $79,040 to $84,240 a year, at both Ashburn, Virginia and Franklin Park, Illinois (requisitions 8220 and 8622). It asks for three or more years in telecommunications or a data center field.
So the two entry paths at Digital Realty pay within a couple of dollars an hour of each other:
- Site Engineer I, $37.50 to $41.00 an hour in Ashburn. Mechanical and electrical work on the building. One year of experience.
- Remote Hands Technician II, $38.00 to $40.50 an hour. Customer hardware and cabling. Three years of experience.
The money is not the deciding factor. The work is. If you want to be on the generators and the UPS, apply for Site Engineer I, and note that it asks for two fewer years of experience. If you would rather be the person the customer calls, apply for Technician II.
Digital Realty director and senior director salary
Digital Realty publishes bands well past the data center floor, including for its director and vice president roles. Every row below came off a live posting on September 2, 2026.
| Posted title | Location | Published annual band | Category | Posting |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Global Vice President, Hyperscale Sales | San Francisco, California | $280,000–$370,000 | Sales | Req 8526 |
| Sr. Legal Director, M&A – Real Estate | Dallas, Texas | $285,000, posted as a single figure with no range | Legal | Req 8228 |
| Sr. Director, Head of Integration Management Office and Post M&A Integrations | Dallas, Texas | $225,000–$250,000 | Corporate strategy | Req 8631 |
| VP, AI Acceleration | Austin, Texas | $220,000–$255,000 | Product and strategy | Req 7969 |
| Sr. Director, Global Physical Security Technology | Boston, Massachusetts | $190,000–$200,000 | Security | Req 7098 |
| Senior Director, Capital Markets | San Francisco, California | $175,000–$225,000 | Finance | Req 7132 |
| Senior Director, Enterprise Solutions – Northeast | New York, New York | $165,000–$225,000 | Sales | Req 7735 |
| Director, Asset Management | New York, New York | $160,000–$180,000 | Real estate | Req 7619 |
| Director, Channel & Alliances | San Francisco, California | $140,000–$177,000 | Sales | Req 8275 |
| Account Director | New York, New York | $130,000–$160,000 | Sales | Req 8162 |
Director and senior director, the short answer
Across ten open Digital Realty postings that print a range, Director titles run $130,000 to $180,000 and Senior Director titles run $165,000 to $250,000 in base salary. The overlap between the two is small. Senior Director starts roughly where Director ends.
What moves the number inside those bands is function, not seniority. The two highest-paid non-executive jobs Digital Realty is advertising are both commercial: a Global Vice President of Hyperscale Sales at $280,000 to $370,000, and a Senior Legal Director for mergers and acquisitions at a flat $285,000 with no range attached, which is unusual and suggests the number is already fixed. The lowest director bands sit in asset management, channel sales and account management.
The title is not the pay grade
One figure belongs in this conversation and it carries no director title at all. A Project Management Lead on Digital Realty’s Capital Upgrade Program posts at $190,000 to $238,000 a year (requisition 8307, Texas).
That band sits above six of the ten director and vice president bands on the table. At Digital Realty, scope and function decide the number, and chasing the word director is not the same thing as chasing the money.
Digital Realty CEO salary and executive compensation
Digital Realty Trust, Inc. trades on the New York Stock Exchange as DLR, so it files exactly what its top officers earn. These figures come from the 2026 proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 17, 2026 and cover fiscal 2025.
| Named executive officer | Title | Salary | Stock awards | Non-equity incentive plan | All other compensation | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Andrew P. Power | President & Chief Executive Officer | $978,846 | $14,174,684 | $3,700,000 | $2,217,967 | $21,071,498 |
| Matthew Mercier | Chief Financial Officer | $594,711 | $3,899,846 | $1,065,000 | $379,730 | $5,939,288 |
| Jeannie Lee | EVP, General Counsel and Secretary | $494,712 | $2,115,922 | $850,000 | $296,563 | $3,757,196 |
Base salary is under 5 percent of what the CEO is paid
Andrew Power’s base salary was $978,846 in 2025 and his total was $21,071,498. Base pay is 4.6 percent of that. The rest is $14,174,684 in stock awards at grant value and a $3,700,000 cash incentive payout.
His total has climbed quickly: $12,355,560 in 2023, $16,254,113 in 2024, $21,071,498 in 2025. That is a 71 percent increase in two years.
The published bonus targets
Digital Realty publishes annual incentive targets for its three named executive officers, expressed as a percentage of base salary. The chief executive is set at a threshold of 100 percent, a target of 200 percent and a maximum of 400 percent. The chief financial officer and the general counsel are at 50, 100 and 200 percent.
Three quarters of the chief executive’s bonus is tied to financial and revenue measures, chiefly Core funds from operations (Core FFO) per share, same-store cash net operating income growth and small-deal and interconnection signings. One quarter is tied to individual goals. Core FFO per share came in at $7.39 for 2025 against a target of $7.10.
No bonus target is published for any role below those three. That is the whole published bonus picture at Digital Realty.
The CEO pay ratio, and what it says about the median job
Digital Realty files the ratio between the top and the middle. Its median employee earned $121,174 in total compensation in 2025, and the chief executive earned 174 times that. The company identified that median employee from a population of about 3,996 people, roughly 44 percent of them in the United States.
The median figure is worth pausing on for anyone using it as a benchmark. At $121,174 it sits above the top of the published Site Engineer III band, which means the median Digital Realty employee is not a data center floor role. Digital Realty is a real estate investment trust with a large corporate, sales, legal, finance and construction population, and the median reflects that mix rather than the floor.
Digital Realty salaries beyond the data center floor
Twenty-four more published bands, all read off live postings on September 2, 2026. This is where most of Digital Realty’s open headcount actually sits.
| Posted title | Location | Published annual band | Category | Posting |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Project Management Lead, Capital Upgrade Program | Texas | $190,000–$238,000 | Construction and projects | Req 8307 |
| Subregional Design Lead | Ashburn, Virginia | $200,000–$225,000 | Design | Req 8375 |
| Giga Campus Construction Lead | Dallas, Texas | $190,000–$210,000 | Construction | Req 8349 |
| Subregional Design Lead, AMER East | Ashburn, Virginia | $190,000–$210,000 | Design | Req 8106 |
| Construction Manager, Campus Lead | Piscataway Township, New Jersey | $180,000–$200,000 | Construction | Req 8359 |
| Sr. Design Manager | Dallas, Texas | $160,000–$200,000 | Design | Req 8377 |
| Strategic Customer Product Architect | Dallas, Texas | $160,000–$180,000 | Product | Req 8314 |
| Quality and Commissioning Manager | Dallas, Texas | $150,000–$180,000 | Commissioning | Req 8546 |
| Sr. Construction Manager | Chicago, Illinois | $150,000–$175,000 | Construction | Req 8415 |
| SailPoint Engineering Lead, Identity and Access Management | Dallas, Texas | $140,000–$180,000 | Information technology | Req 8217 |
| Onsite Energy Generation Manager | Dallas, Texas | $140,000–$160,000 | Energy | Req 8600 |
| Sr. Solutions Engineer | Chicago, Illinois | $140,000–$160,000 | Sales engineering | Req 8018 |
| Sr. Utilities Contract Manager | Dallas, Texas | $132,000–$165,000 | Energy and utilities | Req 8372 |
| Sr. Manager, Corporate Affairs (West) | San Francisco, California | $130,000–$170,000 | Corporate affairs | Req 8350 |
| Sr Manager, Global Commercial Operations | New York, New York | $127,600–$175,450 | Commercial operations | Req 8621 |
| Property Manager | Virginia | $120,000–$135,000 | Property management | Req 8567 |
| Sr. Cloud Engineer | Dallas, Texas | $120,000–$140,000 | Information technology | Req 8276 |
| Contract Manager, Contract Management | Austin, Texas | $120,000–$150,000 | Legal and contracts | Req 8280 |
| Subregional Quality and Compliance Manager, AMER West | Santa Clara, California | $120,000–$165,000 | Quality and compliance | Req 7747 |
| ServiceNow Analyst, Privacy and Compliance | Dallas, Texas | $120,000–$140,000 | Information technology | Req 7636 |
| Global Hyperscale Team, Investments Senior Analyst | Austin, Texas | $120,000–$170,000 | Investments | Req 8015 |
| Sr. Energy Analyst, Infrastructure Modeling and Demand Response | New York, New York | $110,000–$137,500 | Energy | Req 8374 |
| Manager, Oracle HCM Support | Dallas, Texas | $100,000–$125,000 | Information technology | Req 8059 |
| Commercial Manager, PMG | Dallas, Texas | $90,700–$145,200 | Commercial | Req 8430 |
Construction and design pay above the floor, and above most directors
Six of the top seven published bands at Digital Realty belong to construction, design and project delivery. A Subregional Design Lead in Ashburn posts at $200,000 to $225,000. A Giga Campus Construction Lead in Dallas posts at $190,000 to $210,000.
Every one of those sits above the Market Technical Manager band that tops the operations ladder. If your background is mechanical or electrical and you are weighing operations against the build side, the build side pays more at Digital Realty right now. The data center construction salary guide covers that market in full.
What a Digital Realty property manager makes
Digital Realty is a real estate investment trust, so it runs property managers alongside its technical staff. The published Virginia band is $120,000 to $135,000 for a Property Manager. That is above the ceiling of Site Engineer III and below the floor of Manager Data Center Operations, which places it usefully on the ladder for anyone considering the move.
Digital Realty vs Google, Amazon, QTS, Microsoft, Meta and Equinix
| Employer | Title the employer actually posts | Published band | Annualized at 2,080 hrs | Midpoint | Source and date read |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft, entry | Data Center Technician (ATR-B) | $23.65–$37.07 / hr | $49,192–$77,106 | $63,100 | Microsoft careers, Sept 2, 2026 |
| Equinix, Dallas TX | Data Center Customer Operations IV, night shift | $53,600–$80,400 / yr | Salaried | $67,000 | Equinix careers, Sept 3, 2026 |
| QTS, Ashburn VA | Critical Operations Technician I | $27.29–$41.73 / hr | $56,763–$86,798 | $71,800 | QTS careers, Sept 2, 2026 |
| CoreWeave, eight US markets | Data Center Technician | $65,000–$83,000 / yr | Salaried | $74,000 | CoreWeave careers, Sept 5, 2026 |
| CoreWeave, Ellendale ND | Data Center Technician | $65,000–$85,000 / yr | Salaried | $75,000 | CoreWeave careers, Sept 5, 2026 |
| Amazon, server track, Canton and Vicksburg MS | Data Center Technician | $27.83–$48.75 / hr | $57,886–$101,400 | $79,600 | amazon.jobs posting 10440148, Sept 6, 2026 |
| Digital Realty, Ashburn VA | Site Engineer I | $37.50–$41.00 / hr | $78,000–$85,280 | $81,600 | Digital Realty careers, Sept 2, 2026 |
| Meta, Aurora IL | Data Center Production Operations Engineer | $33.17–$47.60 / hr | $68,994–$99,008 | $84,000 | Meta posting text, Sept 6, 2026 |
| Equinix, Ashburn VA | Data Center Critical Facilities IV | $67,400–$101,000 / yr | Salaried | $84,200 | Equinix careers, Sept 3, 2026 |
| Oracle, Allen TX | Data Center Technician 2 | $27.07–$54.13 / hr | $56,300–$112,600 | $84,400 | Oracle posting 38545974, Sept 3, 2026 |
| Amazon, server track, NC, NV, OR and TX | Data Center Technician, posted in some markets as DCO Tech | $30.91–$54.18 / hr | $64,293–$112,694 | $88,500 | amazon.jobs posting 10440148, Sept 6, 2026 |
| Equinix, Silicon Valley | Data Center Critical Facilities Technician | $73,400–$110,200 / yr | Salaried | $91,800 | Equinix careers, Sept 3, 2026 |
| QTS, Manassas VA | Critical Operations Technician I | $35.47–$54.25 / hr | $73,778–$112,840 | $93,300 | QTS careers, Sept 2, 2026 |
| Microsoft, senior | Senior Data Center Technician (ATR-D) | $34.13–$56.54 / hr | $70,990–$117,603 | $94,300 | Microsoft careers, Sept 2, 2026 |
| Google, entry | Data Center Technician II | $86,000–$118,000 / yr | Salaried | $102,000 | careers.google.com, Sept 2, 2026 |
| Meta, Mesa AZ and Los Lunas NM | Data Center Production Operations Engineer | $83,990–$130,000 / yr | Salaried | $107,000 | Meta posting text, Sept 6, 2026 |
| Amazon, facilities track, Northern Virginia and Frederick MD | Data Center Engineering Operations Technician | $37.64–$65.91 / hr | $78,291–$137,093 | $107,700 | amazon.jobs posting 3146851, Sept 6, 2026 |
| Digital Realty, Ashburn and Sterling VA | Lead Engineer | $52.73–$54.80 / hr | $109,678–$113,984 | $111,800 | Digital Realty careers, Sept 2, 2026 |
| Meta, Reynoldsburg OH | Data Center Production Operations Engineer | $51.92–$74.04 / hr | $107,994–$154,003 | $131,000 | Meta posting text, Sept 6, 2026 |
| Google, senior | Data Center Technician, IV | $122,000–$173,000 / yr | Salaried | $147,500 | careers.google.com, Sept 2, 2026 |
| OpenAI | No data center technician postings. Its sites are staffed by the companies that build and run them | Not published | Not published | Not published | openai.com/careers, Sept 3, 2026 |
How we built this table. Every row is a pay range the employer published on a live requisition, read on the date in the last column. Amazon and Meta rows carry the posting number or the market they were read from. The Meta rows come from the posting text itself, republished verbatim on third-party job boards, because metacareers.com would not render for us on September 6, 2026.
The midpoint column is arithmetic on our part, not an employer figure: it is the middle of the published band, annualized at 2,080 hours where the band is hourly. Two caveats apply to every row. Each employer publishes a new-hire range, which is not the same thing as an offer. And none of them publishes the equity grant that sits on top, so no total compensation comparison is possible from published data alone.
What is not here. No figure in this table came from Glassdoor, Indeed, ZipRecruiter, Salary.com, Levels.fyi, PayScale, Comparably or Blind.
Digital Realty has one of the highest entry floors on this list and one of the lowest ceilings.
A Site Engineer I in Ashburn starts at $37.50 an hour. That is $13.85 above where Microsoft’s entry technician band starts, $9.67 above Amazon’s cheapest server-track markets, and $10.21 above what QTS pays at the floor of its own Ashburn campus, for the same market and comparable work. Google and Meta’s Ohio site are the exceptions: Google’s entry band starts at $86,000 a year and Meta’s Reynoldsburg band annualizes to about $108,000, both above the top of Digital Realty’s Site Engineer I band.
The picture reverses at the top. Digital Realty’s whole engineering ladder tops out at $128,960 for a manager who supervises the site engineers. Amazon’s facilities technician band alone reaches about $137,100, and Google’s senior technician band reaches $173,000, both for individual contributors.
The honest summary: Digital Realty pays a high, predictable floor with modest, evenly spaced steps. The hyperscalers pay a lower floor with a much higher ceiling and a wider spread. If you are starting out, Digital Realty is one of the best entry numbers on the board. If you are five years in and chasing a number, it is not.
Two caveats apply to every row. Each employer publishes a new-hire range, which is not the same thing as an offer. And none of them publishes the equity grant that sits on top, so no total compensation comparison is possible from published data alone.
Full detail sits in the Google data center technician salary guide, the Amazon data center technician salary guide, the Microsoft data center technician salary guide and the QTS data center salary guide.
Where Digital Realty is hiring right now
Counted from the Digital Realty careers site on September 2, 2026, across all 186 open requisitions worldwide. Seventy-six of them are in the United States.
| Market | Open United States postings | Of those, data center site operations | What is there |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas (Dallas, Austin, Carrollton, Garland, Houston, Lewisville) | 39 | 7 | Austin headquarters and a large Dallas corporate office, plus the Dallas-Fort Worth campuses |
| Virginia (Ashburn, Sterling) | 13 | 6 | The Northern Virginia campus cluster |
| New York | 6 | 0 | Commercial, finance and energy roles |
| California (San Francisco, Santa Clara) | 5 | 0 | Sales, capital markets and quality |
| Oregon (Hillsboro) | 3 | 2 | Hillsboro campus |
| Illinois (Chicago, Franklin Park) | 3 | 1 | Chicago metro campuses |
| New Jersey (Piscataway Township) | 2 | 1 | Piscataway campus |
| Massachusetts (Boston, Needham) | 2 | 1 | Needham campus and a Boston security role |
| Washington (Seattle) | 1 | 1 | Seattle campus |
| Arizona (Chandler) | 1 | 1 | Phoenix metro campus |
| United States, location not specified | 1 | 0 | Remote construction management |
| Total | 76 | 22 |
More than half the openings are in Texas, and almost none are data center jobs
Thirty-nine of 76 United States openings are in Texas. Only 7 of those are site operations roles. The other 32 are corporate: tax, legal, cloud engineering, marketing, contract management, investments, design and construction.
Digital Realty is headquartered in Austin with a large Dallas office, so the Texas number is head office weight rather than floor hiring. If you want a Digital Realty data center job, Virginia is the better market: 6 of its 13 openings are on the floor, and it is where the published Site Engineer and Lead Engineer bands come from.
Two operators hired for every builder
Of 76 United States openings, 22 are site operations and 11 are construction, design or commissioning. QTS runs the opposite ratio, with 117 construction openings against 54 in facility operations.
One company is staffing buildings it already runs. The other is staffing buildings it is still pouring. If you want operations work, Digital Realty is the better board right now. If you want to be on a build, QTS is.
The international board is bigger than most people expect
Digital Realty had 186 open jobs worldwide on September 2, 2026: 76 in the United States, 24 in the United Kingdom, 17 in Singapore, 14 in the Netherlands, 14 in Germany, 11 in France, 8 in Ireland, 4 in South Korea, and the rest spread across 12 more countries.
That is consistent with where the workforce actually sits. Digital Realty employs more people in Europe, the Middle East and Africa than in North America. The data centre jobs in the UK and data center jobs in Germany guides cover those markets.
What Digital Realty publishes about bonus, benefits and shift
Benefits
Digital Realty lists the same package at the bottom of every United States posting: medical, dental, vision, life and AD&D insurance, 401(k) match, disability benefits, wellness and education benefits, an employee stock purchase plan, paid time off and holidays.
Its annual report adds parental leave, a fitness reimbursement program, commuter benefits, tuition reimbursement, employee skills development and leadership development. The report describes the retirement benefit as a “401(k)/pension company match,” because a majority of Digital Realty employees work outside North America in countries with pension schemes.
What Digital Realty does not publish, and why it matters
Digital Realty states no 401(k) match percentage, no employee stock purchase plan discount, no bonus target for any role below its three named executive officers, no share of the health premium it pays, and no number of paid time off days.
Any page quoting those figures for Digital Realty is quoting something the company has not said. Ask for each one in writing during the offer stage, because none of them is published anywhere you can check.
Bonus and equity
Every Digital Realty posting carries the same line: an employee’s total compensation package “varies by role and may include salary, cash bonus or commissions, and equity awards not quantified below.”
Both the bonus and the equity are real. Neither is quantified for any non-executive role. Treat the published range as base pay and ask what sits on top.
Hourly, overtime and shift
Site Engineer I through III, Lead Engineer, Manager Engineering Operations and Remote Hands Technician II are all posted as hourly rates. That means overtime pays time and a half, and every annualized figure on this page assumes zero overtime.
Digital Realty publishes no shift differential. The Lead Engineer posting asks for second or third shift plus at least one weekend day every week and unscheduled overtime as needed. On a 24 by 7 by 365 floor, overtime is where the real variance in a Digital Realty paycheque lives.
Who Digital Realty is
Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: DLR) is a real estate investment trust (REIT) incorporated in Maryland on March 9, 2004 and headquartered in Austin, Texas. Its own job postings describe it as the largest wholesale data center provider in the world.
How big it is. At December 31, 2025 the portfolio held 310 data centers across more than 50 metropolitan areas: 118 in the United States, 113 in Europe, 36 in Latin America, 18 in Asia, 16 in Africa and 6 in Australia. That is about 57.6 million rentable square feet in the consolidated portfolio plus another 11.2 million square feet held in joint ventures, and the portfolio was 84.7 percent leased. Full year 2025 revenue was $6.11 billion, of which $5.97 billion came from rental and other services.
How many people work there. Digital Realty had 4,282 full-time employees at the end of 2025: 1,948 in North America, 2,040 in EMEA and 294 in Asia Pacific. Europe, the Middle East and Africa is its largest employee region, which is unusual among the big operators and is the reason the median employee compensation figure blends United States and non-United States pay.
That ratio is worth a moment. Across 310 data centers and 4,282 employees, Digital Realty runs about 14 employees per data center company-wide, and that count includes every corporate role in Austin, Dallas and London. It is a hard, filed number against the question of how many people work at a data center.
Who runs it. Andrew P. Power is President and Chief Executive Officer. Matthew Mercier is Chief Financial Officer. Jeannie Lee is Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary. The company’s global platform brand is PlatformDIGITAL, built on what Digital Realty calls its Pervasive Datacenter Architecture (PDx) methodology, and its ServiceFabric interconnection product reaches more than 305 cloud on-ramps and 700 data centers globally.
How to get hired at Digital Realty and negotiate the band
Search the right title. Digital Realty posts floor work as Site Engineer I, Site Engineer II, Site Engineer III, Critical Facilities Engineer II and Lead Engineer. A search for “data center technician” returns the Remote Hands role, which is a different job. Search all five.
Apply with one year, not three. Site Engineer I asks for at least one year in mission critical facilities. Remote Hands Technician II asks for three years in telecommunications or a data center and pays about the same. The lower bar is on the engineering side, which is the opposite of what most people assume.
Read the compensation paragraph before anything else. Half of Digital Realty’s United States postings print the range. If the one you are reading does, you know the floor and the ceiling before the recruiter calls. If it does not, ask in the first call and name the published comparable from this page.
Do not expect a geography argument to work. Digital Realty appears to run a national rate card by role and grade. The Lead Engineer band is identical at two Virginia campuses and the Market Technical Manager band is identical in Virginia and New Jersey. Anchoring on cost of living is unlikely to move the number. Anchoring on grade will.
Ask which grade the requisition is, and what closes the gap to the next one. The steps between grades are 8 to 12 percent and the requirements are published: one year, three years, five years. Getting hired at II rather than I is worth more than negotiating inside I.
Get the bonus, equity and 401(k) match in writing. Digital Realty publishes none of the three for non-executive roles. They are the entire unquantified part of the offer, and the only way to know what they are worth is to ask for the numbers in the offer letter.
Count the overtime honestly. Every band from Site Engineer I to Manager Engineering Operations is hourly, and Digital Realty asks for second or third shift, one weekend day a week and unscheduled overtime. That is either the best part of the offer or the worst, depending on your life, and it is worth doing the arithmetic before you accept.
For the wider picture on where these roles lead, see the data center career path guide.
Common FAQs about Digital Realty data center salary
What is the Digital Realty salary?
Digital Realty’s median employee earned $121,174 in total compensation in 2025, a figure the company files with the SEC. Posted ranges on its own careers site run from $36.50 an hour for an entry Site Engineer I to $370,000 a year for a Global Vice President of Hyperscale Sales.
What is the Digital Realty director salary?
Across Digital Realty postings that publish a range, Director titles run $130,000 to $180,000 in base salary. Director of Asset Management posts at $160,000 to $180,000, Director of Channel and Alliances at $140,000 to $177,000, and Account Director at $130,000 to $160,000, all read September 2, 2026.
What is the Digital Realty senior director salary?
Senior Director titles at Digital Realty post between $165,000 and $250,000 in base salary. The top of that range is a Senior Director running the post-merger integration office at $225,000 to $250,000. Capital Markets and Enterprise Solutions both post in the $165,000 to $225,000 band.
What is the Digital Realty CEO salary?
President and Chief Executive Officer Andrew P. Power was paid a base salary of $978,846 in 2025 and total compensation of $21,071,498, per Digital Realty’s 2026 proxy statement. That total is 174 times the company’s median employee. Base salary is under 5 percent of what he was paid.
What are Digital Realty benefits?
Digital Realty lists medical, dental, vision, life and AD&D insurance, a 401(k) or pension company match, disability benefits, an employee stock purchase plan, wellness and education benefits, tuition reimbursement, parental leave, commuter benefits, paid time off and holidays. It publishes no match percentage and no stock purchase discount.
How much do Digital Realty data center technicians make?
Digital Realty posted its Remote Hands Technician II role at $38.00 to $40.50 an hour on September 2, 2026, about $79,040 to $84,240 a year, the same band in Ashburn, Virginia and Franklin Park, Illinois. The facilities equivalent, Site Engineer I, posts at $37.50 to $41.00 an hour in Ashburn.
What does a Digital Realty Site Engineer 1 make?
Digital Realty posted Site Engineer I at $37.50 to $41.00 an hour in Ashburn, Virginia and $36.50 to $38.36 in Seattle, Washington on September 2, 2026. At 2,080 hours that is roughly $78,000 to $85,280 in Ashburn. The job asks for at least one year in mission critical facilities.
What does a Digital Realty engineer make?
The engineering ladder runs from $36.50 an hour for a Site Engineer I to $62.00 an hour for a Manager Engineering Operations, roughly $75,920 to $128,960 at 2,080 hours. Site Engineer III posts at $48.00 to $51.00 an hour and Lead Engineer at $52.73 to $54.80.
Is Digital Realty a good company to work for?
On the evidence the company publishes, it is a stable and transparent employer rather than a top payer. It printed a pay range on half its open United States jobs, runs a graded ladder with clear one, three and five year steps, and pays 8 to 12 percent a rung. The trade is shift work, weekends and no published bonus target.
How many employees does Digital Realty have?
Digital Realty had 4,282 full-time employees at December 31, 2025, per its annual report: 1,948 in North America, 2,040 in EMEA and 294 in Asia Pacific. Those employees support a portfolio of 310 data centers in more than 50 metropolitan areas.
Sources and how we collected this data
Last updated: September 2, 2026. Every pay band on this page was read from a live Digital Realty job posting on that date, from a sweep of all 186 open requisitions worldwide, and is quoted with the requisition number beside it. Digital Realty states its figure as a “Compensation range” and describes it as “the minimum and maximum target for new hire pay for the full-time position determined by role, level, and geographical location.” Where this page says a band is not published, the posting carried no range at all, which was true of 38 of the 76 open United States postings that day. Annual figures for hourly roles multiply the posted rate by 2,080 hours and are arithmetic on our part, not a Digital Realty figure. Digital Realty states that total compensation may include a cash bonus and equity awards and publishes no target for either below its three named executive officers, so no total compensation figure appears here as a fact.
Postings read for this guide include Site Engineer I in Ashburn Virginia, Seattle Washington, Carrollton Texas, Chandler Arizona and Hillsboro Oregon, requisitions 8400, 8632, 8542, 8407, 8435 and 8174; Site Engineer II in Dallas and Garland Texas, requisitions 8327, 8434 and 8346; Critical Facilities Engineer II or Site Engineer II in Needham Massachusetts, requisition 7440; Site Engineer III in Sterling Virginia, requisition 7789; Lead Engineer in Ashburn and Sterling Virginia, requisitions 8555 and 8597; Remote Hands Technician II in Ashburn Virginia and Franklin Park Illinois, requisitions 8220 and 8622; Manager Engineering Operations in Ashburn Virginia, requisition 8405; Manager Data Center Operations in Virginia and Dallas Texas, requisitions 8428 and 8497; and Market Technical Manager in Ashburn Virginia, Piscataway Township New Jersey and Texas, requisitions 8644, 8592 and 8344.
The director, vice president, construction, design, legal, finance, energy and information technology bands come from requisitions 8526, 8228, 8631, 7969, 7098, 7132, 7735, 7619, 8275, 8162, 8307, 8375, 8349, 8106, 8359, 8377, 8314, 8546, 8415, 8217, 8600, 8018, 8372, 8350, 8621, 8567, 8276, 8280, 7747, 7636, 8015, 8374, 8059 and 8430, all read September 2, 2026.
The executive compensation table, the annual incentive targets, the Core FFO per share result, the CEO pay ratio and the median employee compensation figure of $121,174 come from the Digital Realty Trust, Inc. definitive proxy statement (Form DEF 14A) filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission on April 17, 2026, covering fiscal year 2025.
The employee headcount and regional split, the portfolio of 310 data centers and its geographic breakdown, the rentable square footage, the 84.7 percent leased figure, the fiscal 2025 revenue and the published benefits language come from the Digital Realty Trust, Inc. annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, filed with the SEC on February 13, 2026. The incorporation date, the PlatformDIGITAL and ServiceFabric product descriptions and the cloud on-ramp count come from the same filing.
Competitor bands come from each employer’s own pay statement on its own postings: Google, Meta, Microsoft and QTS read September 2, 2026, and Amazon read August 25 and September 2, 2026. The Equinix figure comes from a Customer Support Data Center Technician posting dated September 23, 2025 and is labelled with that date wherever it appears, because it is the only comparable Equinix band published in the open.
Glassdoor, Indeed, ZipRecruiter, Salary.com, Levels.fyi, Comparably, PayScale and third-party survey figures do not appear anywhere on this page. Digital Realty publishes enough of the real numbers itself, and files the rest with the SEC.
No other page has assembled Digital Realty’s own posted bands for the whole Site Engineer ladder in one table alongside the company’s filed executive compensation. That is what the two tables above are.
