Software Engineer Salary by City and State 2026
Across the highest-paying US markets for software engineers, average pay runs from $176K to $196K as of August 2026. San Francisco Bay Area leads at $196K/year, with San Francisco Bay Area at $196K and New York at $177K. The median across US software engineer postings with a salary between $50K and $300K is approximately $125K. Based on Canaria's analysis of 1B+ job postings.
Average Software Engineer Salary by City
Top 11 cities by average annual salary (last 6 months, minimum 250 salary observations per city)
| City | Avg Annual Salary | Sample Size |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco Bay Area | $195,888 | 433 |
| Santa Clara | $195,383 | 280 |
| San Francisco | $190,361 | 1,190 |
| Palo Alto | $188,519 | 264 |
| Mountain View | $188,065 | 829 |
| San Jose | $184,149 | 671 |
| Sunnyvale | $181,738 | 1,234 |
| Annapolis Junction | $181,134 | 1,312 |
| Fort Meade | $180,667 | 432 |
| New York | $176,701 | 1,472 |
| Seattle | $175,769 | 893 |
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 | $175,031 |
| 2 | WA | $164,950 |
| 3 | MD | $164,597 |
| 4 | NY | $163,209 |
| 5 | MA | $142,802 |
| 6 | VA | $142,291 |
| 7 | DC | $141,943 |
| 8 | OR | $135,359 |
| 9 | TX | $135,159 |
| 10 | AR | $133,996 |
| 11 | CO | $133,412 |
| 12 | NJ | $133,002 |
| 13 | IL | $131,276 |
| 14 | MO | $130,617 |
| 15 | CT | $130,370 |
Software Engineer Salary Distribution
Annual salaries across US software engineer postings with a salary between $50K and $300K, last 6 months
| Salary Range | Number of Postings |
|---|---|
| $50K | 1,372 |
| $75K | 5,809 |
| $100K | 11,714 |
| $125K | 13,629 |
| $150K | 15,688 |
| $200K | 4,510 |
| $250K | 673 |
Which US cities pay software engineers the most?
Software engineer compensation varies widely across US metros. In the latest data the highest average salaries are in San Francisco Bay Area, Santa Clara, San Francisco, where large technology employers and venture-backed startups compete for the same candidates. The ranking only covers cities with at least 250 salary observations in the trailing six months, so thin markets are left out rather than ranked on a handful of postings.
What does the software engineer salary distribution look like?
The salary distribution is right-skewed, the pattern typical of technical roles: most postings sit in the middle of the range, with a thinner tail at the top end for senior and staff-level positions. Among US software engineer postings with a salary between $50K and $300K, about 77% fall between $100K and $200K and roughly 10% sit above $200K.
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 US software engineer postings with a salary between $50K and $300K is approximately $125K/year as of August 2026. Compensation varies significantly by city: across the highest-paying markets, averages run from $176K to $196K.
- Which city pays software engineers the most?
- San Francisco Bay Area has the highest average software engineer salary at $196K/year, based on job postings from the trailing 6 months with at least 250 salary observations per city as of August 2026. San Francisco Bay Area averages $196K.
- Which state pays software engineers the most?
- CA has the highest average software engineer salary at $175K/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 September 2026. Analysis by Canaria Inc.
How to cite this data
Source: Canaria Inc., Job Market Data Analysis, September 15, 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 September 15, 2026, from https://decanaria.com/data/software-engineer-salaries