Software Engineer Salary by City and State 2026
The average software engineer salary in the US ranges from $182K to $199K depending on city as of August 2026. New York City leads at $199K/year. Median salary is approximately $125K. Based on Canaria's analysis of 1B+ job postings.
Average Software Engineer Salary by City
Top 15 cities by average annual salary (last 6 months, minimum 100 postings)
| City | Avg Annual Salary | Sample Size |
|---|---|---|
| New York City | $199,186 | 124 |
| San Mateo | $198,120 | 369 |
| San Francisco Bay Area | $195,546 | 856 |
| Menlo Park | $194,217 | 297 |
| Mountain View | $192,476 | 1,293 |
| Costa Mesa | $192,411 | 142 |
| Santa Clara | $188,335 | 663 |
| Palo Alto | $188,114 | 595 |
| San Jose | $186,234 | 1,422 |
| Quincy | $185,709 | 104 |
| Kirkland | $185,132 | 134 |
| Foster City | $184,263 | 166 |
| Annapolis Junction | $182,346 | 3,241 |
| Redwood City | $182,212 | 111 |
| Sunnyvale | $181,938 | 1,841 |
Software Engineer Salary by State
Top 15 states by average posted or predicted software engineer salary, trailing 6 months.
| Rank | State | Avg Annual Salary |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | CA | $172,257 |
| 2 | MD | $164,999 |
| 3 | WA | $163,522 |
| 4 | NY | $161,471 |
| 5 | MA | $145,194 |
| 6 | DC | $144,676 |
| 7 | VA | $144,186 |
| 8 | TX | $136,411 |
| 9 | NC | $135,238 |
| 10 | CO | $134,375 |
| 11 | HI | $134,139 |
| 12 | CT | $133,825 |
| 13 | NJ | $133,524 |
| 14 | IL | $132,145 |
| 15 | MO | $131,258 |
Software Engineer Salary Distribution
Distribution of annual salaries across all US software engineer postings (last 6 months)
| Salary Range | Number of Postings |
|---|---|
| $50K | 2,590 |
| $75K | 13,209 |
| $100K | 23,558 |
| $125K | 28,025 |
| $150K | 31,829 |
| $200K | 10,008 |
| $250K | 1,324 |
Which US cities pay software engineers the most?
Software engineer compensation varies dramatically across US metros. The Bay Area, Seattle, and New York continue to offer the highest salaries, driven by the concentration of Big Tech employers and venture-backed startups competing for talent. However, cities like Austin and Atlanta are narrowing the gap as more companies establish engineering offices outside traditional tech hubs.
What does the software engineer salary distribution look like?
The salary distribution reveals a right-skewed pattern typical of technical roles: the bulk of postings cluster between $100K and $180K, with a long tail extending past $250K for senior and staff-level positions. The $150K and $180K buckets show notable spikes, likely reflecting common salary bands at large employers.
How does Canaria predict software engineer salaries?
These salary figures combine both explicitly posted compensation and Canaria's AI-predicted salaries. The prediction model is trained on 50M+ salary observations with three-source fusion across posted ranges, employee-reported pay, and BLS OES benchmarks, reporting 95% confidence intervals across 44,000+ SOC-by-state benchmark cells. This extends salary coverage from roughly 50% to over 85% of postings.
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Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the average software engineer salary in 2026?
- The median software engineer salary across all US postings is approximately $125K/year as of August 2026. However, compensation varies significantly by city, ranging from $182K to $199K in the highest-paying markets.
- Which city pays software engineers the most?
- New York City has the highest average software engineer salary at $199K/year, based on job postings from the trailing 6 months as of August 2026.
- Which state pays software engineers the most?
- CA has the highest average software engineer salary at $172K/year as of August 2026, based on postings from the trailing 6 months with at least 100 salary observations per state.
- How does Canaria calculate salary data?
- Canaria extracts salary information from job postings using a combination of structured salary fields and NLP parsing. For postings without explicit salary, Canaria uses an AI prediction model trained on 50M+ salary observations with three-source fusion across posted ranges, employee-reported pay, and BLS OES benchmarks, reporting 95% confidence intervals across 44,000+ SOC-by-state benchmark cells.
- Does this include base salary only or total compensation?
- These figures represent the annual average salary as posted or predicted for the role. They primarily reflect base salary. Total compensation including equity, bonuses, and benefits would be higher, particularly at major tech companies.
Data sourced from publicly available job postings. Updated August 2026. Analysis by Canaria Inc.
How to cite this data
Source: Canaria Inc., Job Market Data Analysis, August 25, 2026, https://decanaria.com/data/software-engineer-salaries
Canaria Inc. (2026). Software Engineer Salary by City and State 2026. Canaria Job Market Data Analysis. Retrieved August 25, 2026, from https://decanaria.com/data/software-engineer-salaries