What software engineers are paid in 2026, and what the ladder leaves out
Just under half of US software engineer postings state a salary. Of the 34,757 collected in 2026 to August 31, 16,979 stated one, and their coverage-adjusted median is $157,500, down 1.3 percent on the same window in 2025. This page carries the quartiles, the four-rung ladder and the method.
$157,500
National Median
Salary Range
Just under half of the software engineer jobs posted in the US this year say what they pay. Of the 34,757 postings collected between January 1 and August 31, 2026, 16,979 stated a figure. Their median, corrected for which states disclose, is $157,500 a year. The unadjusted median of the same postings is $164,640.
That is base pay as the employer wrote it, with no bonus, no stock and no sign-on in it. Half of the disclosing postings sit between $122,500 and $192,500, and posted pay is 1.3 percent lower than in the same window of 2025. Two thirds of those postings also name a level, which makes this one of the few roles where the ladder below describes most of the sample rather than a corner of it.
The figures: what software engineer postings state
Two rows, because the second one is the one to quote. As posted is what the 16,979 disclosing postings say. Coverage-adjusted re-weights them so each state carries its share of all 34,757 collected postings rather than its share of the ones that disclosed. That correction moves the median down 4.3 percent, the largest of any role in this batch.
| Measure | As posted | Coverage-adjusted |
|---|---|---|
| 25th percentile | $126,000 | $122,500 |
| Median | $164,640 | $157,500 |
| 75th percentile | $200,000 | $192,500 |
Base pay, annualized, 16,979 US postings that stated pay, collected January 1 to August 31, 2026.
Only 48.9% of software engineer postings state pay
16,979 of the 34,757 collected postings carried a usable annual figure. 17,733 gave no pay information at all, and 45 were unusable: 42 quoted a currency other than US dollars, and three fell outside the collection window. So every number on this page describes slightly under half of the advertised market, and it is the half that talks.
Which half that is can be measured rather than guessed at. In the thirteen states with pay-transparency laws in force, 53.9 percent of postings state pay, against 33.8 percent everywhere else, and the median role pays about 10 percent more in those states. That pushes any median built from disclosing postings upward. Re-weighting by state removes most of it, and for software engineers the correction is 4.3 percent, from $164,640 to $157,500. This role carries the largest correction of the twenty-eight in the dataset, which is what you would expect of a role whose highest-paying employers cluster in exactly the states that legislated disclosure.
If you are looking at a posting with no figure on it, what a DOE listing actually means covers the phrasings employers use instead of a number.
Posted pay is 1.3% lower than a year ago
The 2025 comparison uses the same titles, the same country filter and the same calendar window, January 1 to early September, so the change is a measurement rather than an artifact of a rewritten query. The 2025 median was $166,750 across 59,906 disclosing postings. The 2026 median is $164,640 across 16,979.
Those two counts differ by a lot, and that is a fact about collection rather than about hiring. Posting volume on this pipeline swings by a factor of twenty between months, so this page makes no claim about how many software engineering jobs exist or whether that number is growing. The medians are comparable. The counts are not. A drop of 1.3 percent in posted base pay is flat in practice, and it puts the role in the competitive band on PayScope's market label rather than in a falling one.
Pay by level, on the postings that state one
The ladder below is built on the 11,236 postings that state a level, which is two thirds of the 16,979 that stated pay. That makes this role unusual in the dataset: on most roles the postings that name no rung are the bulk of the sample. The other 5,743 usable postings here state no level, and their median of $140,000 sits 15 percent below the role median, so the headline figure on this page sits above what an unlevelled posting typically offers.
| Level | Postings stating pay | 25th percentile | Median | 75th percentile | Years in role |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry | 569 | $75,000 | $95,000 | $138,450 | 0 to 2 years |
| Mid | 1,582 | $121,000 | $149,800 | $171,500 | 2 to 5 years |
| Senior | 5,696 | $140,000 | $173,200 | $200,000 | 4 to 6 years |
| Lead | 3,389 | $163,000 | $200,000 | $230,400 | 5 to 8 years |
Rounded to the nearest five thousand dollars the four medians read $95K, $150K, $175K and $200K. Pay rises at every rung, which is not true of every role in this dataset and is the reason this page carries a ladder at all.
Two things in the table are worth reading carefully. Entry's 75th percentile of $138,450 sits above the Mid median, so a well-paid entry posting outbids a typical mid one, and the rungs describe advertised scope rather than a queue. And the stated experience ranges overlap at the top, 4 to 6 years at senior against 5 to 8 at lead, so the step from senior to lead is a change in what the job covers rather than two more years of service.
How these figures were produced
The source is PayScope's own collection of US job postings, deduplicated by posting id and filtered to the United States, covering January 1 to August 31, 2026. 34,757 postings matched the role and 16,979 stated a usable annual pay figure. Every figure on this page is base pay as the employer wrote it, with bonus, commission, stock, sign-on and refresher grants all excluded.
Five posted titles map to this role:
- software engineer
- software developer
- software development engineer
- software dev engineer
- developer
The blend is dominated by one of them. "Software engineer" alone supplies 15,078 of the 16,979 disclosing postings, nearly nine in ten, and its own median is $170,000. "Software developer" supplies 875 at a median of $123,000, and the bare title "developer" 375 at $114,400. So the $164,640 figure is close to what the exact title states, and a posting advertising a "developer" typically offers a third less. Check which word the posting in front of you uses.
One limit matters more on this role than on any other in the catalog. These figures describe advertised base pay, not total compensation. At senior and lead levels in the technology sector, stock and bonus routinely add a large share on top of base, which is why sources that collect self-reported total compensation publish much higher figures for the same job. What the salary sources actually measure sets the three kinds of number side by side. Use the figures here to check a base-salary offer against the advertised market, not to predict a total package. Other roles are on the salary guide index.
Frequently asked questions
What is the median salary for a software engineer in the US?
$157,500 a year, coverage-adjusted, from 16,979 US job postings that stated pay and were collected between January 1 and August 31, 2026. The unadjusted median of the same postings is $164,640. Half of them sit between $122,500 and $192,500, and all figures are base pay as posted.
How many software engineer job postings state pay?
48.9 percent. Of 34,757 US postings collected in 2026 through August 31, 16,979 carried a usable pay figure, 17,733 carried none, and 45 were unusable. Disclosure is higher in the thirteen states with pay-transparency laws in force, at 53.9 percent against 33.8 percent everywhere else.
What does each software engineering level pay?
On the 11,236 postings that state a level, collected to August 31, 2026: entry $95,000, mid $149,800, senior $173,200 and lead $200,000, all medians of base pay. The other 5,743 disclosing postings name no level and state a median of $140,000.
Are these software engineer salary figures base pay or total pay?
Base pay as the employer posted it, annualized. Bonus, commission, stock, sign-on and refresher grants are all excluded. In technology roles at senior level and above, equity and bonus often add a large share on top, so total compensation runs well above these figures.
How current are these software engineer pay figures?
The collection window runs from January 1 to August 31, 2026, and August 31 is the cut-off for every figure here. September was left out because that month's collection is too thin to compare with the rest of the year. The figures are regenerated monthly on the same method.