Ask "what does a software engineer make?" and you'll get two very different right answers. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median software developer wage at $133,080 a year as of its latest (May 2024) data. Levels.fyi, which tracks crowdsourced pay at large tech employers, reports a median total compensation of $192,000. Both are correct — they just measure different things. BLS counts base wages across every employer in the country, including banks, hospitals, and government. Levels.fyi counts base plus bonus plus stock at the companies that hand out equity, which skews toward big tech.
Where you land in that gap depends on three things: your level, your employer, and your metro.
What you'll find here:
- Total comp by level — entry/new-grad (L3), mid (L4), senior (L5), staff (L6), and principal (L7)
- Median base pay by metro — SF Bay Area, New York, national, and remote
- Why the BLS number and the levels.fyi number are so far apart, and which one applies to you
- FAANG vs. startup vs. non-tech employer pay, and what actually moves an offer
Why the BLS and levels.fyi numbers are both correct
The single most confusing thing about software engineer pay is that two reputable sources disagree by nearly $60,000. Here's why.
BLS measures base wage across all employers. The Occupational Outlook Handbook reports a national median of $133,080 for software developers and $102,610 for the separate "software quality assurance analysts and testers" category, both as of May 2024. The lowest 10 percent of developers earned under $79,850; the top 10 percent cleared $211,450. These are wages — base salary only. They include the engineer at a regional insurance company in Ohio and the federal contractor on a fixed pay scale, not just the person at a venture-backed startup.
Levels.fyi measures total compensation at the companies that pay equity. A self-reported dataset, it captures base + annual bonus + the annualized value of stock grants. As of mid-2026 its national median sits at $192,000, with the 25th percentile at $135,000 and the 75th at $277,000. That number runs high partly because of equity and partly because of who reports: engineers at Google, Meta, and Stripe are far more likely to log their pay than the ones at a 40-person logistics firm.
Neither is wrong. If you're weighing an offer from a public tech company, the levels.fyi total-comp framing is closer to your reality. If you're a non-tech-company engineer paid in cash, the BLS base figure is your benchmark. The mistake is comparing your base salary to a levels.fyi total-comp number and concluding you're underpaid — you might just be comparing two different rulers.
| Source | What it measures | National median |
|---|---|---|
| BLS (software developers) | Base wage, all employers | $133,080 |
| BLS (QA analysts & testers) | Base wage, all employers | $102,610 |
| Levels.fyi (all SWE) | Base + bonus + equity, mostly tech | $192,000 |
Software engineer salary by level
Pay scales by level, not by years. Most tech companies use a ladder — Google's L3 through L9, Meta's E3 through E9, Amazon's SDE I through Principal — and the level, not your tenure, sets your band. The figures below are levels.fyi median total comp (base + bonus + equity) as of the latest data, mapped to the common industry levels.
| Level | Common titles | Typical total comp (levels.fyi) |
|---|---|---|
| L3 / E3 — Entry / new-grad | Software Engineer I, SDE I | ~$140,000 median ($100K–$189K range) |
| L4 / E4 — Mid | Software Engineer II | ~$180,000–$230,000 |
| L5 / E5 — Senior | Senior Software Engineer | ~$270,000–$320,000 |
| L6 / E6 — Staff | Staff Software Engineer | ~$400,000–$500,000 |
| L7 / E7 — Principal | Principal / Senior Staff | ~$600,000+ |
A few things to read carefully here:
- Entry level (software engineer starting salary). New-grad total comp at big tech runs around $140,000 median, but that bundles a base near $110K–$130K with a signing bonus and a four-year stock grant. Entry level software engineer pay at a non-tech employer — and the BLS base wage that captures it — is lower, often $80K–$110K base with no equity. New-grad base offers at Google and Meta start around $214K and $193K total comp respectively (L3 / E3), per company pages on levels.fyi.
- Senior software engineer salary (L5). This is where total comp jumps hardest because the stock grant grows faster than base. A senior software engineer salary at a public tech company commonly lands in the $270K–$320K total-comp range; the base portion is often $180K–$210K, with the rest in equity.
- Staff software engineer salary and beyond. Staff engineer salary (L6) and principal (L7) are dominated by stock. Median total comp at staff frequently clears $400K, and principal/senior-staff packages at companies like LinkedIn have been reported north of $1M. Base salary barely moves between senior and staff — the raise is almost entirely equity and bonus.
If you're targeting one of these levels, the interview bar rises sharply with each rung. Senior and staff loops lean heavily on architecture and trade-off discussions, which is why preparing for system design interview questions matters as much as coding once you're past L4.
Software engineer salary by location
Location moves base pay more than almost any other factor short of level. The same L5 title can differ by $80K in total comp between San Jose and Atlanta. Below is median total comp from levels.fyi for the two highest-paying metros, against the national base-wage benchmark from BLS.
| Market | Median (source) | What it reflects |
|---|---|---|
| SF Bay Area | $273,170 total comp (levels.fyi) | Densest big-tech cluster; equity-heavy |
| New York City area | $193,000 total comp (levels.fyi) | Finance + tech mix; high base, mixed equity |
| National (all employers) | $133,080 base wage (BLS) | Every employer, base only |
| California (statewide) | ~$170,910 median (BLS, May 2024) | State-level base wage, not just the Bay |
Reading the metros:
- Software engineer salary California. Statewide, the BLS base-wage median for California is around $170,910 — already the highest of any state. But the Bay Area is its own world: levels.fyi puts median total comp there at $273,170, with the 25th percentile at $201K and the 75th at $377K. The gap between the statewide base figure and the Bay Area total-comp figure is mostly equity.
- Software engineer salary New York / senior software engineer salary NYC. New York City's median total comp on levels.fyi is $193,000 (25th: $137K, 75th: $275K, 90th: $375K). New York skews toward high base salaries — finance and quant shops pay cash — so the base-to-total ratio is higher than the Bay Area's. A senior software engineer salary in NYC commonly lands in the $250K–$350K total-comp range at the big tech and finance employers.
- Remote. Remote pay usually anchors to a national or "tier 2" band rather than the Bay Area scale. Many companies localize: a remote engineer in Denver or Austin is typically banded 5%–15% below the Bay Area rate for the same level, though fully location-agnostic startups are the exception.
Geography and cost of living don't move together. Washington State pays among the top base wages and has no state income tax, which is why it often beats California on take-home despite California's higher headline numbers.
How total comp actually breaks down — and how to raise it
Total comp is three parts, and they grow at different speeds:
- Base salary rises modestly with level and tends to plateau. The jump from senior to staff might add only $10K–$25K to base.
- Annual bonus is usually a percentage of base — 10%–20% at most big-tech companies, higher at hedge funds and some finance-adjacent shops.
- Equity is where the real money is at senior-plus levels. A four-year stock grant, refreshed annually, can outgrow your base entirely by L6. This is also the part that varies most by employer — and the part you can negotiate hardest.
Employer type changes the mix more than the title does:
| Employer type | Comp shape | What to expect |
|---|---|---|
| FAANG / public big tech | Equity-heavy, predictable | Highest total comp at senior+; liquid stock |
| Startup (Series A–C) | High equity %, low cash | Lower base; upside is illiquid and risky |
| Non-tech company | Cash-heavy, little/no equity | Closer to the BLS base figure; stable |
| Finance / quant | Very high base + cash bonus | Top base salaries; bonus-driven, not stock |
The single biggest lever on your pay is not an annual raise — it's a new offer you negotiate. Internal raises tend to track inflation plus a few points; a competing offer or a level-up at a new company can move total comp 20%–40% in one step. The Stack Overflow 2024 Developer Survey shows the same pattern in role data: US back-end developers report a median around $170,000 and engineering managers around $192,500, with the gaps between roles and seniority bands far larger than any single year's raise.
Three things that reliably move an offer:
- Get the level right before you talk numbers. Two engineers with identical experience can be slotted at L4 or L5 depending on how the loop reads them. The level sets your band ceiling, so it's worth more than haggling over the base.
- Negotiate equity and sign-on, not just base. Base is the least flexible number at most tech companies. Stock refreshers and signing bonuses have far more give.
- Anchor with a real competing offer. Nothing moves a recruiter like a credible alternative. This is also why interview performance compounds — strong answers to technical interview questions at multiple companies give you the leverage to negotiate at all of them.
The same broad pattern shows up in other engineering fields — see how it plays out in aerospace engineering salaries, where employer cluster matters more than the title on the diploma. And if you're worried about the field's durability, software engineering remains one of the more AI-resilient career paths precisely because senior judgment doesn't automate cleanly.
The biggest pay jumps come from offers you negotiate, and the strongest offers start with a warm intro to the person doing the hiring — not a cold application in a queue. Articuler uses semantic search across 980M+ professional profiles to find the actual hiring manager or engineering lead behind a role, then helps you reach them with a personalized note that gets replies at roughly 8x the rate of a generic message. A 15-minute conversation before you interview tells you more about the real level and band than any salary page.
FAQ
What is the average software engineer salary in 2026?
It depends on what you count. The BLS median base wage for software developers is $133,080 (May 2024 data). Levels.fyi, which includes bonus and equity at mostly large tech employers, reports a median total compensation of $192,000. Both are accurate — BLS measures base pay across all employers, while levels.fyi measures total comp at companies that grant stock.
What is a senior software engineer salary?
A senior software engineer (L5) at a public tech company typically earns $270,000–$320,000 in total comp per levels.fyi, of which roughly $180K–$210K is base and the rest is equity and bonus. In New York the band runs similar; in the SF Bay Area it trends higher. At non-tech employers, a senior engineer's base is often $150K–$200K with little or no equity.
How much does an entry-level software engineer make?
Entry-level (new-grad / L3) total comp at big tech runs around $140,000 median on levels.fyi, blending a base near $110K–$130K with a signing bonus and stock. At a non-tech employer, entry level software engineer pay is more often $80K–$110K base with no equity — closer to the lower end of the BLS distribution.
What is a staff software engineer salary?
Staff engineer (L6) median total comp frequently clears $400,000 at public tech companies, the vast majority of it equity and bonus rather than base. Base salary barely changes from senior to staff — the raise is in stock. Principal (L7) and senior-staff packages climb higher still, with some reported above $1M at top employers.