Software engineer salary in San Francisco 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 San Francisco. Software engineer leaves out Google and Meta, which file engineers at most levels under that one title (125 such filings in San Francisco).

The numbers

• Software engineer. Median $200,000, middle half $175,100 to $230,756, across 949 filings.
• Senior software engineer. Median $219,144, middle half $200,000 to $235,000, across 422 filings.
• Staff software engineer. Median $254,071, middle half $229,121 to $266,224, across 147 filings.
• Machine learning engineer. Median $197,250, middle half $175,728 to $233,955, across 106 filings.
• Founding engineer. Median $200,000, middle half $165,000 to $215,750, across 118 filings.
• AI engineer. Median $202,851, middle half $172,276 to $225,000, across 46 filings.
• Research engineer. Median $240,000, middle half $235,000 to $279,541, across 53 filings.
• Forward deployed engineer. Median $182,500, middle half $162,990 to $207,028, across 56 filings.
• Member of Technical Staff outside the AI labs. Median $240,000, middle half $203,739 to $300,000, across 230 filings.

Who files the most

Counting software engineer, senior and staff titles together, the largest filers in San Francisco were Databricks (97, median $175,100), Uber (78, median $203,600), Airbnb (69, median $230,000), DoorDash (53, median $235,000), Resolve AI (52, median $213,512) and Lyft (32, median $203,300).

Against the rest of the country

The San Francisco median for software engineers was 53% 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 San Francisco, 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.