# Software engineer salary: $180,000–$251,450 a year

Every number below comes from 8,554 tracked live postings whose title matches "software engineer". No surveys, no self-reports. Listed salaries only, in US dollars.

Measured November 2026 · n=3,950 US postings with salary.

## Findings

- The median software engineer posting offers $180,000–$251,450 a year (n=3,950).
- 26.1% of the 8,554 live postings matching "software engineer" are remote.
- Builds AI (AI Level 4) software engineers list $190,000–$287,500, vs $172,000–$241,500 at Little AI (AI Level 1).

## Median salary by seniority (USD / year)

| Segment | US postings with salary | Median min–max / year |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Intern | 25 | $111,098–$124,800 |
| Junior | 99 | $127,100–$155,000 |
| Mid-level | 779 | $142,000–$198,000 |
| Senior | 2,245 | $184,000–$253,644 |
| Lead | 602 | $220,000–$299,100 |

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

| Segment | US postings with salary | Median min–max / year |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Remote | 1,066 | $187,500–$260,000 |
| On-site / hybrid | 2,884 | $174,915–$250,000 |

## Companies hiring software engineers

- [NVIDIA](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/nvidia) (470)
- [Anduril Industries](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/anduril-industries) (330)
- [Cisco](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/cisco) (296)
- [SpaceX](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/spacex) (293)
- [Mastercard](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/mastercard) (214)
- [Amazon](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/amazon) (195)
- [Databricks](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/databricks) (175)
- [OpenAI](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/openai) (151)

## Method

US-dollar postings whose title contains "software engineer", with both salary bounds listed. This page exists because 3,950 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 Do not cite as a national average.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.

## Software engineer salary questions, answered from the data

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

Across 3,950 live US postings for software engineers with a listed USD salary, measured November 2026, the median offer is $180,000–$251,450 a year. This is the tracked catalog, not the whole labor market.

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

26.1% of the 3,950 live postings are marked remote by the employer, measured November 2026.

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

In this sample, 1,318 postings build AI and 5,562 involve little AI. See the level breakdown below for the median at each level. Measured November 2026.

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

## Cite this page

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

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