Software engineering pays well almost everywhere, but 'well' varies by a factor of ten or more depending on the country, and the gap between a junior developer's first salary and a distinguished engineer's total compensation at a large technology company is wider than in almost any other profession on this site.
Demand has also been unusually volatile for a supposedly safe career choice: a decade of aggressive hiring gave way to large layoffs in 2022–2024, even as long-run government forecasts still point toward solid growth through the mid-2030s.
The pay ladder
The Bureau of Labor Statistics' lowest-paid 10% of the occupation nationally, May 2024 — roughly where a new graduate in a lower-cost region starts.
Typical for an engineer a few years past their first job in the United States; varies enormously by city and company.
The US median annual wage for the occupation, Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2024 — half earn more, half less.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics' highest-paid 10% of the occupation nationally, May 2024, before stock compensation is added.
Total compensation including stock at top US technology firms in the mid-2020s, per widely used industry compensation surveys; varies widely and is far from typical.
What it pays around the world
Switzerland
Entry-level software engineers in Switzerland average around CHF 86,600 and senior engineers with 8+ years around CHF 139,600 — among the highest software pay in Europe, 2024–25 data.
United States
US median annual wage for the software developer occupation, Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2024.
Germany
Junior software engineers in Germany average roughly €45,000–55,000; senior engineers with 8+ years average around €107,000, 2024–25 data.
United Kingdom
UK starting software-engineer salaries average around £31,400, rising to roughly £59,200 at senior level; London pay runs higher, 2024 data.
Japan
National average annual salary for software engineers, Japan Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare survey, 2024.
India
Typical band for fresher-to-mid-level engineers at Indian IT-services and product firms, 2024–25 industry salary surveys; senior engineers at top product companies earn considerably more.
Key numbers
Who employs them
One of the world's largest single employers of software engineers, known for a demanding, algorithm-heavy interview process widely copied across the industry.
Microsoft
Owns GitHub and Visual Studio Code, two of the tools most engineers use daily, alongside its own Windows, Office and Azure engineering organisations.
Infosys
One of India's largest IT-services employers, with headcount in the hundreds of thousands, building and maintaining software for clients worldwide rather than shipping its own consumer products.
SAP
Founded in 1972 in Mannheim by five former IBM engineers, and now Europe's largest software company by revenue, built around enterprise resource-planning systems.
Tencent
One of China's largest technology employers, spanning WeChat, gaming and cloud infrastructure for a domestic user base of well over a billion people.
JPMorgan Chase
A bank, not a technology company on paper, but one that reports employing more than 50,000 technologists — a reminder that most software engineers now work outside the tech industry itself.
Where the demand is going
Demand has been volatile rather than simply high. The 2010s and early 2020s saw a long hiring boom, followed by large layoffs at major technology companies in 2022–2024 as the industry corrected after over-hiring and interest rates rose, then AI tools began doing some of the work junior hires used to do.
Long-run demand still looks solid: government forecasters in the United States project double-digit job growth into the mid-2030s, and software is being written into industries — cars, farm equipment, medical devices — that barely employed engineers a generation ago. The mix of roles within 'software engineer' is what is shifting fastest.
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