We index job listings from 21 applicant tracking systems across 214 countries, then analyze every position for tech stack, salary, remote policy, and seniority. Here is what we found.
The software engineering job market in early 2026 is defined by a set of structural shifts that are reshaping how companies hire and how engineers build careers. After analyzing 77,480 active job listings from 8,230 companies across 214 countries, several patterns emerge that challenge conventional wisdom about where the industry is heading.
The AI salary premium is real, but narrowly concentrated. Engineers working with large language model frameworks like PyTorch and OpenAI's toolchain earn 25-35% more than the market average. However, this premium is clustered in a relatively small number of roles — just 3,382 listings mention LLM-specific skills. The broader AI/ML category commands strong salaries ($203K average), but the truly outsized compensation is reserved for engineers building and fine-tuning foundation models, not those simply integrating APIs. For most engineers, the practical takeaway is that adjacent skills like Python and cloud infrastructure remain far more marketable by volume, even if per-role AI salaries grab headlines.
Remote work has stabilized, not disappeared. Despite widespread return-to-office mandates from large employers, 29% of all software engineering listings still offer fully remote work. This figure has held steady for two consecutive quarters after declining from its pandemic peak. The real story is in the compensation data: remote roles in the US pay an average of $187,800 — competitive with hybrid ($187,800) and modestly above onsite ($175,200). The myth that remote work requires a salary discount has been thoroughly debunked by the data, at least for senior engineers. Industries like developer tools (43% remote) and crypto (56% remote) remain strongly distributed, while defense (13%) and automotive (18%) cluster heavily onsite.
The senior squeeze is intensifying. Senior engineer listings account for 59% of all positions — an extraordinary concentration that makes the mid-career band both the easiest to enter and the most competitive. Junior roles represent just 2.8% of the market, creating a genuine pipeline problem. Staff-plus positions (staff, principal, director) have grown to 22% of listings, reflecting companies' willingness to pay for technical leadership that can operate independently. For engineers navigating this landscape, the data suggests that specializing in infrastructure, AI/ML, or platform engineering offers the strongest salary trajectory from senior to staff level, with typical jumps of 25-40%.
Geographic arbitrage still works, but the window is narrowing. US-based roles account for 56% of the index and pay substantially more than equivalent positions elsewhere. However, India (18% of listings), Brazil (4.7%), and Poland (4.6%) are growing fast as hiring markets. The most interesting development is the rise of "remote-US-only" listings that effectively create a domestic remote labor market with Bay Area-caliber salaries available to engineers in lower cost-of-living states. Meanwhile, companies hiring internationally are increasingly explicit about location-adjusted compensation, with some posting separate salary bands for US, EU, and APAC candidates.
Python dominates the market, appearing in over 25% of all indexed listings — a lead it has held for three consecutive years. Its position is reinforced by its dual role as both the primary language for AI/ML development and a workhorse for backend services, data engineering, and automation. Cloud infrastructure skills (AWS, Azure, GCP) collectively appear in over 43% of roles, reflecting the industry's deep and now irreversible shift to cloud-native architectures. Perhaps the most notable trend is the emergence of LLM-specific roles, which have surged to 3,382 listings — a category that barely existed 18 months ago and now rivals established frameworks like Angular or Vue in hiring volume.
The infrastructure tier tells a particularly interesting story. Kubernetes (10,970 listings), Docker (8,843), and Terraform (5,896) form a trio that appears in more than a third of all backend and DevOps roles, signaling that container orchestration is no longer a specialization but a baseline expectation for senior engineers. On the frontend, React maintains a commanding lead with 10,736 listings, more than double the combined volume of Angular and Vue. TypeScript has overtaken JavaScript in raw listing count (9,345 vs. 7,483), marking a milestone in the industry's shift toward type-safe frontend development. For engineers planning their next career move, the data suggests that the highest-leverage skill combinations pair a primary language (Python, Go, or Java) with cloud infrastructure (AWS or GCP) and at least one orchestration tool (Kubernetes or Terraform). These combinations appear in the highest-paying roles and are least likely to be disrupted by AI code generation, which tends to automate application-layer code more readily than infrastructure work.
Full tech stack analysis Which tech stacks pay the mostThe return-to-office movement is clearly reflected in the data: 44% of software engineering roles now require full onsite presence, up from estimates of around 30% in early 2024. However, remote work remains a strong force with 29% of all listings offering fully remote arrangements. Hybrid work accounts for the remaining 25%, often with 2-3 days per week in-office requirements. The narrative that remote work is "over" is not supported by the numbers — what has actually happened is a bifurcation, where some companies have gone fully onsite while others have doubled down on distributed work, with very few occupying the middle ground.
Compensation data adds a surprising wrinkle to the remote work debate. Among US-based senior roles, hybrid positions actually pay slightly more on average ($187,800) than fully remote ones ($187,800) — a statistical tie that challenges the assumption employers discount remote work. Both substantially outpace onsite roles ($175,200). The most remote-friendly industries are crypto and Web3 (56% remote), developer tools (43%), and AI/ML startups (25%), while defense, automotive, and healthcare cluster heavily onsite. For engineers evaluating offers, the data suggests that accepting a remote role no longer requires a compensation trade-off, but it does narrow the set of available companies and industries considerably.
Deep dive into remote work trends Do remote engineers earn less?Of the 77,480 jobs in our index, 29,442 (38%) include explicit salary information — a transparency rate that has improved steadily as pay transparency laws in Colorado, New York, California, and Washington take effect. The US market remains the highest-paying globally, with senior software engineers commanding a median of approximately $180,000. Staff and principal roles regularly exceed $250,000, while early-career positions start around $85,000 in major tech hubs. These figures represent base compensation and typically exclude equity, bonuses, and benefits, meaning total compensation at top firms can be 30-50% higher.
The salary data reveals significant variation by specialization. AI/ML engineers earn the highest average salaries ($203,000), followed by infrastructure and platform engineers ($195,000) and backend engineers ($188,000). Frontend-focused roles trail at approximately $165,000 — a gap that has widened over the past year as companies allocate more budget to backend AI integration and infrastructure scaling. Geography compounds these differences: a senior Python engineer in San Francisco earns roughly $210,000, while the same role in Berlin pays approximately $95,000 and in Bengaluru around $35,000. These gaps are well-known, but the data quantifies them with a precision that can inform both job seekers negotiating offers and companies calibrating their compensation bands against the market.
Complete salary guide Salary by industryThe market skews heavily toward experienced engineers. Senior roles account for 59% of all listings, while junior positions make up just 2.8%. This reflects both the industry's maturation and companies' preference for engineers who can deliver autonomously. The staff-plus segment (staff, principal, and director) represents 22% of the market — a significant and growing share that signals investment in technical leadership rather than people management.
This seniority distribution carries significant implications for engineers at different career stages. For junior developers, the 2.8% figure translates to roughly 2,170 entry-level openings across the entire index — a stark number that explains why early-career job searches often feel impossible. The path through this bottleneck increasingly runs through internships, open-source contributions, and portfolio projects rather than traditional applications. For mid-career engineers, the concentration of demand at the senior level means abundant opportunities but also intense competition — with 27,179 senior roles, employers can afford to be selective about tech stack fit and domain experience. The most strategic move for engineers in this band is often lateral: picking up infrastructure or AI/ML skills that open the door to staff-level positions, where the 25-40% salary jump from senior to staff represents one of the largest single-step compensation increases in the industry.
Guide for junior engineersThe United States dominates with 56% of all indexed positions, followed by India at 18%. Europe collectively accounts for roughly 20%, with France, Germany, and Poland leading the region. Notably, Poland's strong showing (3,572 listings) reflects its emergence as a nearshore engineering hub for Western European companies, a trend accelerated by EU membership, competitive salaries, and a strong university pipeline. Brazil's 3,617 listings make it the largest Latin American market by a wide margin, driven by a growing domestic tech sector and international companies establishing engineering offices in Sao Paulo.
At the city level, the data tells a more nuanced story than the country-level numbers suggest. San Francisco and the broader Bay Area still lead in absolute job volume and compensation, but their share is shrinking as companies distribute engineering teams more widely. Bengaluru has emerged as the single highest-volume city globally with 3,536 listings, reflecting India's role not just as an outsourcing destination but as a primary engineering hub for companies like Flipkart, Razorpay, and the Indian offices of US tech firms. In Europe, London (2,173 listings), Berlin (1,264), and Paris (962) form the core triangle of engineering hiring, each with distinct specializations: London skews toward fintech, Berlin toward startups and developer tools, and Paris toward AI research and defense technology. For engineers willing to relocate, the data suggests that the best balance of job volume, salary, and quality of life may be found in emerging hubs like Austin, Warsaw, and Lisbon, where hiring is growing faster than competition.
City-by-city hiring guide Best cities for engineersFinancial technology leads all sectors with 9,905 listings, driven by the ongoing digitization of banking, payments, and lending. The fintech category encompasses everything from neobanks and payment processors to lending platforms and wealth management tools, and its hiring volume reflects both genuine growth and the high turnover rate common in venture-backed startups. Insurance (8,432) ranks second — perhaps surprisingly — fueled by massive legacy modernization efforts as carriers replace COBOL and mainframe systems with modern cloud-native architectures. Developer tools companies (7,171) remain aggressive hirers, building the infrastructure layer that other companies depend on.
The AI/ML category (3,878 listings) is the most interesting from a trend perspective. While it currently ranks fifth by volume, its growth rate exceeds every other category, and its average salary ($203,000) leads all sectors. This combination of rapid growth and premium compensation signals a market that is still in its early expansion phase rather than approaching saturation. At the other end of the spectrum, industries like EdTech (230 listings) and Clean Tech (277) remain small but offer disproportionate impact per engineer, which attracts candidates motivated by mission rather than compensation alone. Defense (2,548 listings) is a sleeper category: it offers strong salaries, high clearance premiums, and dramatically less competition than consumer tech, but requires US citizenship and onsite work in most cases. For engineers evaluating industry moves, our data suggests that the sweet spot lies in industries with strong hiring volume AND above-average salaries — a combination found most consistently in fintech, AI/ML, and developer tools.
Industry hiring analysis The AI/ML hiring boomDeeper explorations of the software engineering job market, drawn from the same dataset that powers this report.
A comprehensive breakdown of compensation by seniority, location, tech stack, and industry. Which skills pay the most? Where do remote roles out-earn onsite? We analyzed 29,000+ salary data points to find out.
Remote, hybrid, and onsite — how the split has evolved, which industries and cities lean which way, and what the data says about the relationship between remote policy and compensation.
From Python's dominance to the rapid rise of LLM-focused roles, we break down which technologies appear most in job listings, how they correlate with salary, and which stacks are growing fastest.
San Francisco still leads, but by how much? We compare hiring volume, salary ranges, remote availability, and dominant industries across the world's major engineering hubs.
Fintech dominates, but insurance is the surprise contender. We analyze hiring volume, tech preferences, and compensation across 15 industries to see where the opportunities are.
We ranked 26 technologies by average salary. OpenAI-adjacent skills top $236K, while frontend frameworks cluster around $165K. The gap between infrastructure and UI engineering has never been wider.
Conventional wisdom says remote workers take a pay cut. Our data from 77,480 listings tells a different story — hybrid roles actually pay the most, and the gap is smaller than you think.
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AI engineers earn 27% more than the market average. But the premium is concentrated in specific frameworks — PyTorch outpaces TensorFlow, and the OpenAI ecosystem commands its own salary tier.
Gaming tops the salary charts at $211K average, but fintech offers the best balance of volume and pay. We compare 17 industries across salary, remote rates, and hiring momentum.
Only 2.8% of listings target juniors. We analyzed what skills, cities, and strategies give entry-level engineers the best shot — backed by data from the 1,313 junior roles in our index.
The data in this report paints a picture of a job market that is simultaneously robust and stratified. Total listing volume remains strong at 77,480 active positions, and salary transparency is improving as more jurisdictions mandate pay disclosure. But the opportunities are not evenly distributed, and engineers who understand the contours of the market can make significantly better career decisions than those navigating by intuition alone.
For engineers early in their careers, the biggest challenge is breaking through the 2.8% junior bottleneck. The data suggests three strategies that correlate with success: targeting industries with higher junior hiring rates (insurance and healthcare tend to have more structured entry-level programs), building portfolio projects that demonstrate competence in high-demand technologies (Python, React, and AWS appear in the most listings), and considering geographic flexibility — cities like Austin, Bengaluru, and Warsaw have growing job markets with less competition than San Francisco or New York. The jump from junior to mid-level remains the most impactful career transition, with a typical salary increase of 60-80%.
For mid-career and senior engineers, the decision that matters most is specialization. The salary data strongly favors infrastructure and AI/ML specialists over generalists and frontend developers. A senior Go engineer working on Kubernetes-based platform tooling earns roughly $210,000 on average, while a senior React developer earns approximately $175,000 — a $35,000 gap that compounds over a career. This does not mean frontend work is less valuable, but it does mean the market currently prices backend infrastructure and AI skills at a significant premium. Engineers looking to maximize compensation should consider whether their current stack aligns with these market realities.
For hiring managers and engineering leaders, the data offers equally actionable insights. The 59% concentration in senior roles means that the most competitive segment of the market is also the most saturated by employer demand. Companies that can effectively screen and develop junior engineers will access a dramatically less competitive talent pool. Remote-friendly policies expand the addressable candidate market by roughly 30%, and our data shows no associated salary penalty — making remote work one of the most cost-effective recruiting tools available. Finally, the industry salary data suggests that companies outside the traditional tech sector (particularly insurance, logistics, and clean tech) can attract strong candidates by offering competitive salaries in less glamorous but equally challenging problem domains.
Each technology page includes salary data, remote work availability, top hiring companies, and editorial analysis based on our dataset of 77,480 listings.
Explore software engineering opportunities in major tech hubs worldwide. Each city page includes local salary ranges, top employers, and market commentary.
See how hiring volume, compensation, and remote work policies differ across 25 industry verticals in software engineering.
findjobs.dev is a software engineering job market research platform. We index job listings from 21 applicant tracking systems (including Greenhouse, Lever, Workday, and BambooHR) across 214 countries, then analyze each listing for tech stack requirements, salary data, remote work policy, seniority level, and industry classification. The result is a comprehensive dataset of 77,480 active software engineering positions that powers both our job search tools and our market research reports.
Our scraping pipeline runs daily, pulling new listings from all 21 ATS platforms and removing positions that are no longer active. Salary data, tech stack trends, and geographic distribution are recalculated with each update. When a job listing expires, we redirect its URL to the company's jobs page rather than showing a broken link, so bookmarked searches remain useful over time.
Based on our analysis of 29,442 listings with explicit salary data, the average software engineer salary varies significantly by seniority and location. In the US, junior engineers earn a median of approximately $85,000, senior engineers earn around $180,000, and staff/principal engineers earn $255,000 or more. AI/ML specialists command the highest premiums at $203,000 average across all seniority levels. See our complete salary guide for detailed breakdowns by technology, city, and industry.
As of March 2026, 29% of all indexed software engineering positions offer fully remote work, 25% are hybrid (typically 2-3 days per week in office), and 44% require full onsite presence. Remote availability varies dramatically by industry: crypto and Web3 companies offer 56% remote roles, while defense contractors offer only 13%. Notably, our salary data shows that remote roles do not pay less than onsite equivalents — in fact, remote and hybrid US roles both average approximately $187,800. Read our remote work analysis for the full breakdown.
Python leads all technologies with 19,670 listings (25% of the index), followed by AWS (16,813), CI/CD tools (13,686), Java (11,132), and Kubernetes (10,970). On the frontend, React dominates with 10,736 listings — more than double Angular and Vue combined. TypeScript has officially overtaken JavaScript in raw listing volume (9,345 vs. 7,483). The fastest-growing category is LLM/AI-specific roles at 3,382 listings. See our tech stack demand report and highest-paying stacks analysis.
OpenAI-related skills top the salary charts at $236,000 average, followed by PyTorch ($219K), MLflow ($212K), and LLM frameworks ($210K). Infrastructure tools like Kubernetes ($195K) and Terraform ($191K) also command strong premiums. Frontend frameworks pay less: React averages $173K and Angular $166K. The widest gap is between AI/ML and frontend engineering — a difference of roughly $71,000 at the extremes. Our complete salary-by-technology ranking covers 26 technologies.
By job volume, Bengaluru leads globally with 3,536 listings, followed by San Francisco (2,847), New York (1,921), and London (2,173). By salary, San Mateo tops the chart at $247K average, followed by Sunnyvale ($237K) and San Francisco ($213K). For the best balance of opportunity, compensation, and quality of life, our data highlights emerging hubs like Austin, Warsaw, and Lisbon where hiring is growing faster than competition. See our best cities report and city-by-city guide.
Extremely competitive. Only 2.8% of all indexed listings (approximately 2,170 positions) target junior or entry-level engineers, while senior roles account for 59%. The jump from junior to mid-level is the most impactful career transition, with a typical salary increase of 60-80%. Our data suggests that the most effective strategies for junior candidates include targeting industries with structured entry programs (insurance, healthcare), building portfolio projects in high-demand technologies (Python, React, AWS), and considering cities with growing but less saturated markets. See our data-driven guide for junior engineers.
We report salary data only when the original job listing includes explicit compensation information. We do not estimate, impute, or crowdsource salaries. Of the 77,480 listings in our index, 29,442 (38%) include salary data — a rate that has improved as pay transparency laws in Colorado, New York, California, and Washington have taken effect. All figures are converted to annual USD at indexing time. Our salary guide includes detailed methodology and coverage statistics.
Fintech leads with 9,905 listings, followed by insurance (8,432), developer tools (7,171), and healthcare (6,391). AI/ML ranks fifth at 3,878 listings but is growing fastest and pays the highest average salary ($203K). Defense (2,548) is an underappreciated sector offering strong salaries with less competition. Industries like gaming ($211K average) and insurance ($183K) offer salary premiums that may surprise engineers who assume compensation tracks with prestige. Our industry salary comparison ranks all 17 sectors.
The data in this report is drawn from findjobs.dev's live index of software engineering job listings. We aggregate positions from 21 applicant tracking systems and company career pages, covering the full spectrum from early-stage startups to public companies. Each listing is analyzed using a combination of structured field extraction and natural language processing to produce a standardized fingerprint that includes location, seniority, tech stack, salary range, remote policy, and industry classification.
Salary figures are reported only when the original listing includes explicit compensation data. We do not estimate or impute salaries. All salary figures represent annual base compensation in USD. Listings in other currencies are converted at the time of indexing. The data reflects a snapshot of active listings and is updated continuously as new positions are posted and expired listings are removed.