Software engineer salary in New York City in 2026

Where the number comes from

Each figure comes from the Labor Condition Applications employers file with the US Department of Labor for a worker on an H-1B, H-1B1 or E-3 visa. A filing names the job title, the worksite and the salary the company commits to pay. We count certified, full-time filings with a yearly salary, decided from July 2025 to June 2026, and use the middle of the range where a range is filed. These are the same filings and title rules as the Zelcast Pay Index, where the method is set out in full. Here we keep the filings whose worksite is New York City. Software engineer leaves out Google and Meta, which file engineers at most levels under that one title (738 such filings in New York City).

The numbers

• Software engineer. Median $180,000, middle half $145,000 to $206,997, across 950 filings.
• Senior software engineer. Median $215,000, middle half $190,000 to $235,805, across 486 filings.
• Staff software engineer. Median $241,063, middle half $218,148 to $252,000, across 83 filings.
• Machine learning engineer. Median $191,000, middle half $162,094 to $235,402, across 123 filings.
• Founding engineer. Median $185,000, middle half $160,805 to $200,000, across 48 filings.
• AI engineer. Median $190,000, middle half $154,746 to $222,862, across 45 filings.
• Research engineer. Median $226,514, middle half $192,250 to $250,000, across 30 filings.
• Forward deployed engineer. Median $160,000, middle half $145,000 to $190,000, across 86 filings.
• Member of Technical Staff outside the AI labs. Median $230,296, middle half $200,000 to $276,351, across 72 filings.

Who files the most

Counting software engineer, senior and staff titles together, the largest filers in New York City were Bloomberg (170, median $235,805), DoorDash (50, median $197,225), Intuit (37, median $197,134), Palantir (37, median $162,500), Uber (32, median $204,600) and LinkedIn (32, median $209,902).

Against the rest of the country

The New York City median for software engineers was 38% above the national median of $130,330. The national figure mixes in states where the title pays less, such as Texas, the second largest state for it, at a median of $112,950.

What the data can and can’t tell you

These are base salaries only, so they leave out equity, bonuses and benefits. They cover workers on these visas, who are a large share of engineers at many US tech companies but not all of them. A filing states what an employer commits to pay for a role when it files, and it does not record a hire. Pay can change after it.

How to use it

If you’re hiring in New York City, the figures above are what other employers committed to for the same title in the same city. If you’re weighing an offer, compare it with the line for your title and level, and remember that equity at a startup and stock at a public company can matter more than the gap in base.