Software Engineer Posted Median Drops to $237,500, but Only 22 Listings Carry It
The posted median for Software Engineer roles over the last 30 days is $237,500. In the 30 days before that, it was $263,670. That is a drop of $26,170, or about 9.9%.
The sizes of the two pools matter more than the gap. These are pay ranges employers published on their own listings, annualized to USD, across the boards Career App tracks. The recent median rests on 22 listings. The earlier one rests on 183. Twenty-two listings is a small sample for an occupation this broad, and a handful of senior or staff-level postings landing in one window instead of the other can move a median by tens of thousands of dollars on its own.
The wider pool sits in between
Over a longer stretch, Software Engineer has 990 listings with a posted range, and their median is $245,400. That figure sits between the two 30-day numbers and is built on roughly 45 times as many listings as the recent window. It is the steadier reference for anyone sizing up an offer.
Against the other occupations with enough posted ranges to rank, Software Engineer is well paid but not at the top. Engineering Manager leads at $289,000 across 184 listings, followed by Machine Learning Engineer at $274,150 across 94 and Product Manager at $252,860 across 280.
The spread in that list is wide. Sales Representative posts a median of $75,457 across 122 listings, less than a third of the Engineering Manager figure. Mechanical Engineer sits at $192,000 on 103 listings, Marketing Manager at $182,000 on 89, Sales Manager at $175,000 on 88, Account Executive at $224,000 on 148, and Data Scientist at $250,000 on 87.
Every recent pool is thin, not just this one
Software Engineer is the largest of the six occupations where both 30-day windows carried enough listings with posted pay to compare, and it is still the one with 22. The rest are smaller: Product Manager with 10 recent listings against 72 earlier, Financial Analyst with 7 against 18, Program Manager with 6 against 14, Systems Analyst with 5 against 5, and Engineering Manager with 5 against 43.
The direction of the medians is mostly down. Program Manager fell from $189,000 to $170,000, Systems Analyst from $233,500 to $210,000, and Financial Analyst from $172,500 to $170,000. Product Manager was flat at $256,000 against $256,500. Engineering Manager moved the other way, from $306,000 to $310,000, on five recent listings.
What stands out across all six is how far the listing counts fell. Fewer employers published a pay range in the recent window than in the one before it, in every occupation on the list. That is a change in what gets posted, and it is not the same thing as a change in what gets paid.
Hiring context
The recent drop in how many listings carry a posted range does not track overall volume. Across the boards we track, 11,905 new roles opened in the last 30 days against 10,470 in the 30 before, an increase of about 14%. Week to week the count went the other way: 8,237 new roles this week against 8,876 the week before, on boards that were already being tracked before the comparison began. There are 59,820 open listings today from 679 employers.
No occupation-level hiring counts came through for this week, so there is no new-role total to pair with the Software Engineer pay move. For a picture of how volume is trending day to day, see US hiring trends, day by day, or go straight to the Job search.
Correction, October 19, 2026: The pay medians in this post and its charts were calculated from the top of each posted pay range rather than its midpoint, which is the basis our occupation pages use. Midpoint medians are typically 10% to 17% lower than the figures shown here.