What is the national median wage for software developers?

In the May 2025 OEWS estimates, the national median annual wage for software developers (SOC 15-1252) is $135,980. The hourly median is $65.38. The 10th percentile is $82,460, the 90th is $214,670, the mean is $148,100, and employment is 1,687,890.

How does that differ from web developers and QA testers?

They are separate occupations. Software quality assurance analysts and testers have a May 2025 national median of $104,300. Web developers have a median of $92,650. Web and digital interface designers have a median of $104,000. The developer median is $135,980. The occupation definitions are in the BLS file at https://download.bls.gov/pub/time.series/oe/oe.occupation.

How do Seattle and Austin compare after local prices?

The May 2025 median is $167,280 in Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue and $134,120 in Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, a nominal gap of $33,160. The 2024 all-items regional price parities are 111.133 and 98.066. In national prices the wages are about $150,522 and $136,765, a gap of $13,757. A Seattle median has about the purchasing power of $147,611 in Austin.

Which metro has the highest published software developer median?

In the May 2025 metropolitan tables, the highest published median for software developers is San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA, at $213,110. Employment is 87,350 and the hourly median is $102.46. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont publishes $186,640. The California state median is $174,410, below both.

Do the developer wages include bonuses?

OEWS wages include incentive pay such as commissions and production bonuses. They exclude nonproduction bonuses, overtime, shift differentials, and the employer's cost of benefits. The May 2025 technical notes at https://www.bls.gov/oes/2025/may/oes_tec.htm are the list. The median is not a total compensation figure.

Published by Salary by Metro · Updated October 21, 2026

Software developer pay by metro

Seattle's median is $33,160 above Austin's. In national prices the gap is $13,757. The job title on the offer may still be a different occupation.

Staff Sgt. Bill Snider, a U.S. Air Force computer programmer, at his desk at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma — Staff Sgt. Bill Snider, a computer programmer with the 552nd Computer Systems Squadron, at Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma. Photograph by John K. McDowell, U.S. Department of Defense. Wikimedia Commons · Public domain

Software developer, web developer, and a tester are different rows in the May 2025 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics estimates, released May 15, 2026. The developer row is SOC 15-1252. A metro median for that row is straight-time pay for wage-and-salary workers in the metropolitan area, not a total of salary, bonus, and equity, and not the wage for a neighboring computer occupation. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA and Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX are a concrete version of the question people ask when they compare a coastal offer with a Texas offer. The paychecks differ. The prices differ. Both differences are published, and they are not the same size.

The occupation the table is using

The May 2025 estimates use the 2018 Standard Occupational Classification. The definitions are linked from the OEWS documentation at https://www.bls.gov/oes/oes_doc.htm and printed in the occupation file at https://download.bls.gov/pub/time.series/oe/oe.occupation. Software developers research, design, and develop computer and network software or specialized utility programs. They analyze user needs and develop software solutions. They may update software, work with computer hardware engineers on specifications, or maintain databases inside an application area. Software quality assurance analysts and testers, SOC 15-1253, develop and execute software tests, document defects, and report those defects to software or web developers. Web developers, SOC 15-1254, develop and implement websites, web applications, application databases, and interactive web interfaces. Web and digital interface designers, SOC 15-1255, design the digital user interfaces or the websites. BLS classifies workers by job duties, not by job title. That rule is in the SOC frequently asked questions at https://www.bls.gov/soc/faqs/frequently_asked_questions.htm. A payroll title can say software engineer while the duties match the tester definition, or say developer while the duties match the web-developer definition. The wage citation follows the definition.

The national medians show why the split matters. Software developers: employment 1,687,890, median $135,980, hourly median $65.38. Software quality assurance analysts and testers: employment 186,740, median $104,300, hourly median $50.14. Web developers: employment 70,190, median $92,650, hourly median $44.54. Web and digital interface designers: employment 113,330, median $104,000, hourly median $50.00. The developer median is $31,680 above the QA median and $43,330 above the web-developer median. Those are national figures. A metro page for developers does not fill in a metro page for testers.

The national developer distribution

For software developers, the annual 10th percentile is $82,460, the 25th is $105,210, the median is $135,980, the 75th is $171,980, and the 90th is $214,670. The mean is $148,100. The hourly 10th percentile is $39.64 and the hourly 90th is $103.21. The middle half of the wages runs from $105,210 to $171,980. The mean is $12,120 above the median. High wages pull the average up. That gap is one of the examples in the note on median and mean pay, which is why this guide does not walk the arithmetic again. The note on percentiles explains the columns. The figures here are the levels. The all-occupations national median in the same release is $50,980. Developer pay is centered well above that. Employment of 1,687,890 is wage-and-salary employment. The technical notes at https://www.bls.gov/oes/2025/may/oes_tec.htm exclude the self-employed, owners and partners in unincorporated firms, household workers, and unpaid family workers. A developer working as an unincorporated independent is outside the median. The tables are at https://www.bls.gov/oes/tables.htm.

Seattle and Austin

Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA employment for software developers is 92,770, the largest count after the New York area in this release. The 10th percentile is $99,190, the 25th is $132,800, the median is $167,280, the 75th is $211,860, and the 90th is $257,960. The mean is $174,920. The hourly median is $80.42. The Washington state median is $166,540, and Washington employment is 107,030. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue is inside Washington, and its 92,770 developer jobs are 86.7 percent of that state count. The state median is still the state figure, not a neighborhood inside Seattle.

Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX employment is 31,960. The 10th percentile is $96,110, the 25th is $104,000, the median is $134,120, the 75th is $168,730, and the 90th is $209,890. The mean is $143,630. The hourly median is $64.48. The Texas median is $132,150, and Texas employment is 163,880. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX is the larger Texas count: employment 67,030, median $133,290, hourly median $64.08. Austin's median is $830 above Dallas's. Someone who treats Texas as one software wage is close, for these two metros and the state median, in a way they would not be close if they used the Texas median for a Seattle job. Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX publishes a median of $129,440 and employment of 22,940, still near the Texas figure. The spread inside Texas, across these three metros, is a few thousand dollars. The spread between Seattle and Austin is not.

The nominal gap is $167,280 minus $134,120, or $33,160. The price adjustment uses the 2024 all-items regional price parities, released February 19, 2026. The BEA series page is https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area. The United States is 100. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue is 111.133. Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos is 98.066. Divide the Seattle median by 111.133 and multiply by 100. That is $150,522 in national prices, rounded to the nearest dollar. Divide the Austin median by 98.066 and multiply by 100. That is $136,765. The gap in national prices is $150,522 minus $136,765, or $13,757. Prices take a large piece out of the $33,160 nominal gap. They do not take all of it. Austin's parity is under 100, so the Austin wage is worth more in national prices than it is on the paycheck. Seattle's parity is over 100, so the Seattle wage is worth less in national prices than the paycheck suggests. Both of those moves shrink the gap. A remainder stays.

The purchasing-power version of the same pair: a Seattle median of $167,280 has about the purchasing power of $147,611 in Austin. That is $167,280 times 98.066 divided by 111.133, rounded to the nearest dollar. The Austin median is $134,120, which is $13,491 under $147,611. An Austin median of $134,120 has about the purchasing power of $151,991 in Seattle, $134,120 times 111.133 divided by 98.066. The Seattle median is $167,280, not $151,991. Matching Seattle purchasing power in Austin means a wage above the Austin median and below the Seattle paycheck. Matching the Austin median means paying the local cost of labor. The comparison tool does this for software developers when those two metros are selected. The wages are May 2025. The parities are 2024. This is a different result from electrician pay in Chicago and Dallas, where the parities are 103.595 and 103.090 and the national-price gap stays almost as wide as the nominal gap. Price parities answer the price question. They do not answer it the same way for every occupation.

San Francisco, San Jose, and New York

Among metropolitan areas in the May 2025 tables, the highest published median for software developers is San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA, at $213,110. Employment there is 87,350. The hourly median is $102.46. The 10th percentile is $138,420 and the 90th is $289,150. The mean is $221,710. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA publishes a median of $186,640, an hourly median of $89.73, and employment of 69,030. The 10th percentile is $128,090 and the 90th is $273,400. The 2024 parity for San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont is 115.613. Divide $186,640 by 115.613 and multiply by 100: $161,435 in national prices, still above Seattle's $150,522 and Austin's $136,765. The California median is $174,410, with employment of 284,390. That state figure is below the San Francisco metro median and below the San Jose median. A job in San Francisco is not cited properly with the California median, and a job in a lower-paying part of California is not cited properly with the San Jose median.

New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ has the largest developer employment in the release, 121,000. The median is $166,830, the hourly median is $80.21, the 10th percentile is $101,690, and the 90th is $224,590. The mean is $165,870, which is $960 under the median. The nominal median is $450 below Seattle's $167,280. The 2024 parity is 112.563. Divide $166,830 by 112.563 and multiply by 100: $148,210 in national prices, which is $2,312 under Seattle's $150,522. The wage covers the whole NY-NJ area. The state comparison uses New York, where the developer median is $166,180 and employment is 113,510. Metro employment is larger than New York state employment because the area includes New Jersey. The New York state median is not a New Jersey median. Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH publishes a median of $166,090 and employment of 42,310, in the same nominal neighborhood as Seattle and New York, with its own price parity on the metro page.

Bonuses and the straight-time wage

The technical notes are specific about the wage. It is straight-time gross pay. Included: the base rate, cost-of-living allowances, guaranteed pay, hazardous-duty pay, incentive pay including commissions and production bonuses, and tips. Excluded: overtime pay, severance pay, shift differentials, nonproduction bonuses, the employer's cost for supplementary benefits, and tuition reimbursements. A production bonus is inside the wage concept. A bonus that is not a production bonus is outside it. The employer's cost of benefits is outside it. The median cannot be read as a total of base pay plus a year-end bonus plus the employer's benefit spending. Where a page shows a mean above the median, as the national developer row does, that is the shape of the straight-time distribution. It is not a measure of equity grants, and it is not a promise about the next offer.

Quote SOC 15-1252 for software developers. Quote 15-1253 for QA analysts and testers, 15-1254 for web developers, and 15-1255 for web and digital interface designers. The national medians are $135,980, $104,300, $92,650, and $104,000.
The Seattle median is $167,280 and the Austin median is $134,120. In national prices, using 2024 parities of 111.133 and 98.066, those are about $150,522 and $136,765.
The highest published metro median in the May 2025 tables is San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, at $213,110, with employment of 87,350.
A nonproduction bonus is not in the wage. The self-employed are not in the employment count. A blank cell stays blank.

Software developers, national wages · Software developers in Seattle · Software developers in Austin · Software developers in Dallas · Software developers in San Francisco · Software developers in New York · Software developers in Boston · Software developers in Houston · Software quality assurance analysts and testers · Web developers · Web and digital interface designers · Compare developer pay, Seattle and Austin · Comparing pay across metros · Cost of labor and cost of living · Median pay and mean pay · Electrician pay by metro