# Senior software engineer salary: $185,000–$243,290 a year

Every number below comes from 2,242 tracked live postings whose title matches "senior software engineer". No surveys, no self-reports. Listed salaries only, in US dollars.

Measured November 2026 · n=1,020 US postings with salary.

## Findings

- The median senior software engineer posting offers $185,000–$243,290 a year (n=1,020).
- 32.2% of the 2,242 live postings matching "senior software engineer" are remote.
- Builds AI (AI Level 4) senior software engineers list $184,000–$254,000, vs $185,000–$242,500 at Little AI (AI Level 1).

## Median salary by seniority (USD / year)

| Segment | US postings with salary | Median min–max / year |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Senior | 1,016 | $185,000–$243,290 |
| Lead | 4 | $210,965–$357,645 |

## Remote vs on-site (USD / year)

| Segment | US postings with salary | Median min–max / year |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Remote | 320 | $186,065–$238,000 |
| On-site / hybrid | 700 | $184,000–$247,650 |

## Companies hiring senior software engineers

- [NVIDIA](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/nvidia) (148)
- [Anduril Industries](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/anduril-industries) (107)
- [Mastercard](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/mastercard) (70)
- [Roblox](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/roblox) (65)
- [Elastic](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/elastic) (55)
- [Grab](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/grab) (51)
- [Affirm](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/affirm) (43)
- [Cisco](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/cisco) (41)

## Method

US-dollar postings whose title contains "senior software engineer", with both salary bounds listed. This page exists because 1,020 such postings clear the 50-posting floor Level requires before publishing a dedicated salary page. Below that, the median moves too much between ingestion cycles to be a citable number.

Sample: postings at tech companies tracked by Level. Not the whole labor market. Do not cite as a national average.

Refreshed automatically; this edition is measured November 2026. Small-n slices move a lot. Read the n column first.

## Senior software engineer salary questions, answered from the data

**What is the median senior software engineer salary?**

Across 1,020 live US postings for senior software engineers with a listed USD salary, measured November 2026, the median offer is $185,000–$243,290 a year. This is the tracked catalog, not the whole labor market.

**How many senior software engineers jobs are remote?**

32.2% of the 1,020 live postings are marked remote by the employer, measured November 2026.

**Does the AI level of the job change the pay?**

In this sample, 307 postings build AI and 1,501 involve little AI. See the level breakdown below for the median at each level. Measured November 2026.

Source: https://jobsbylevel.com/salaries/role/senior-software-engineer

## Cite this page

Level. https://jobsbylevel.com/salaries/role/senior-software-engineer. Measured November 2026.

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