By US government data, the highest-paying tech jobs are computer and information systems managers (median $175,140 in May 2025), computer hardware engineers ($161,740), computer and information research scientists ($140,300) and software developers ($135,980). With bonuses and stock, total pay at large tech companies can run well above those medians.
Definition: Total compensation is everything a job pays in a year: base salary, plus any bonus or commission, plus the value of equity (stock grants or options) vesting that year. In tech, the gap between salary and total compensation can be large.
That gap is why two honest sources can disagree by six figures about the same job. Below: which numbers to trust, how the pay is built, and how people reach the top of the range.
The highest-paying tech jobs, by the numbers
Start with the most neutral source. The Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys employers, not job seekers, and publishes median pay (the middle worker) for each occupation.
Here are the top-paying tech occupations in the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, using May 2025 pay data:
| Occupation | Median pay (May 2025) | Top 10 percent earn more than | Typical entry |
|---|---|---|---|
| Computer and information systems managers | $175,140 | $297,510 | Bachelor's plus 5+ years in IT |
| Computer hardware engineers | $161,740 | $225,330 | Bachelor's in computer engineering |
| Computer and information research scientists | $140,300 | $230,630 | Master's degree |
| Software developers | $135,980 | $214,670 | Bachelor's degree |
| Computer network architects | $134,050 | $202,680 | Bachelor's plus 5+ years in IT |
| Sales engineers | $124,900 | $195,270 | Bachelor's degree |
For context, the BLS puts the median for all computer and information technology occupations at $109,470 and the median for all occupations at $50,980. So the median software developer earns roughly 2.7 times the typical US worker, and the median IT manager about 3.4 times.
A few patterns stand out:
- Management sits on top. The best-paid line is a management job that, per the BLS, typically asks for five or more years of IT experience first. It is a destination, not an entry point.
- The spread inside a job is huge. For software developers, the top 10 percent earn more than $214,670 and the bottom 10 percent less than $82,460, a ratio of about 2.6 to 1. Where you work and what you work on can matter as much as the title. Gergely Orosz of The Pragmatic Engineer describes engineering pay as trimodal: local employers, ambitious startups and scaleups, and big tech or firms that benchmark across regions each pay on a different scale, with equity the biggest reason for the gap.
- Industry moves the number. The BLS reports a median of $164,550 for software developers at software publishers, against $132,050 in computer systems design. For research scientists, software publishers pay a median of $211,270.
Why salary sites show much bigger numbers than the BLS
You may have seen claims that a regular software engineer makes $300,000. Both that number and the BLS median can be accurate. They measure different things.
The BLS counts wages, not stock. Per the BLS's own FAQ for its Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey, the wage figures include base pay, commissions and production bonuses, but exclude stock bonuses, year-end bonuses, profit sharing and overtime. At a company where a third of pay arrives as stock, the BLS sees only part of the package.
Crowdsourced sites skew toward big employers. Levels.fyi's 2025 End of Year Pay Report, built on pay data its users report, puts median total compensation for US software engineers at $155,000 at entry level, $226,000 at mid level, $312,000 for senior engineers and $457,000 for staff engineers, including salary, stock and bonus. People who report to a site like that tend to work at larger, better-paying tech companies, and they choose to share.
Our read: use the BLS for what a typical employer pays, and crowdsourced data for what the top of the market pays. Hold both loosely.
The 1752vc careers salary guide is a third angle. It groups the base pay posted in job listings by level (equity and bonuses not included), which is closer to what an employer will offer before negotiation than to what an employee reports after it.
How tech pay works: base, bonus and equity
At the highest-paying tech jobs, salary is often only part of the story. There are three building blocks.
1. Base salary. The guaranteed part, and what most job postings show.
2. Bonus or commission. Many larger companies pay an annual bonus as a percentage of base, tied to company and individual performance. Sales roles work differently: per the BLS, sales engineers are usually paid a mix of salary and commission, or salary plus bonuses. In sales, the headline number is often on-target earnings, which assumes you hit quota.
3. Equity. The part that varies most.
- At public companies, equity usually comes as restricted stock units (RSUs). They vest on a schedule, often over four years, and have a market price you can look up. That makes them close to cash, though the stock can fall.
- At startups, equity usually comes as stock options: the right to buy shares later at a fixed price. They are worth something only if the company becomes worth much more and you can eventually sell. You may also need cash to exercise them. Index Ventures' Rewarding Talent handbook singles out the common US 90-day window to exercise after you leave as a reason people forfeit options they cannot afford to buy.
That last point is not theoretical. Carta reported in October 2024 that employees on its platform exercised about 33 percent of their in-the-money options in 2024, down from about 43 percent in 2019. Plenty of people leave paper value on the table, often because exercising costs real money for an uncertain payoff.
A worked example: comparing two offers
Here is an illustrative comparison for a mid-level engineer. The numbers are invented to show the math, not to benchmark the market.
Offer A, a public tech company: $160,000 base, a 10 percent target bonus ($16,000), and $200,000 of RSUs vesting over four years ($50,000 a year). Expected yearly total: $226,000.
Offer B, a Series A startup: $150,000 base, no bonus, and options on 0.10 percent of the company, vesting over four years. If the company is valued at $80 million today, that stake is worth $80,000 on paper, or $20,000 a year. Paper total: $170,000.
Now stress-test Offer B. Startups usually raise more money, and each round dilutes you. If three more rounds each dilute existing holders by about 18 percent, your 0.10 percent becomes roughly 0.055 percent. At a $500 million exit, that is about $276,000 before your exercise cost, taxes and any investor preferences paid out first. At a $1 billion exit it is about $551,000. If the company fails, it is zero.
So Offer B pays $76,000 a year less in near-cash, in exchange for a lottery ticket with real odds. That can suit someone chasing learning and scope, and hurt someone with rent and loans. Our guides to the employee equity offer letter and to startup compensation and equity cover the terms worth checking before you sign.
Best high-paying tech jobs by starting point
The table ranks jobs by pay. The more useful question is which one you can reach from where you are.
If you can code or want to learn: software engineering is the widest door. The BLS counts about 1.7 million software developers, so there are far more seats than in research or hardware. Specializing later (infrastructure, security, machine learning) is where pay tends to climb.
If you want to work in AI: the pay momentum is strong. Carta's State of Startup Compensation 2026, published in May 2026, found median salaries for AI engineers at startups on its platform rose 10 percent and their median equity packages 31 percent over the prior 18 months, while salaries for all startup employees rose 5.1 percent since January 2024. Our guide on how to get a job in AI maps the role families.
If you prefer people to code: sales engineering and technical sales pay well without a programming job title. The BLS reports a median of $153,410 for sales engineers at software publishers, before counting anything paid outside wages. The trade-off is variable pay tied to targets.
If you are early in IT: support, systems administration and networking are slower routes, but they feed directly into network architect and IT management roles, two of the higher-paying lines in the table.
If you have a graduate degree in a technical field: research scientist roles are a small group (about 38,600 jobs in 2025, per the BLS) with a high ceiling, and the BLS lists a master's degree as the typical entry requirement.
How to get into the highest-paying tech jobs: the routes that work
Most people do not start in the top-paying roles. They get there by stacking moves. One realistic sequence:
- Pick a ladder, not just a title. Each top-paying role sits at the end of a ladder: support to sysadmin to network architect; developer to senior developer to engineering manager; sales development to account executive to sales engineer or sales leadership.
- Get the first rung, even at lower pay. Early on, what the job teaches and who you work with often matters more than a few thousand dollars of salary.
- Specialize where demand is rising. Security, cloud infrastructure, data and AI engineering are areas where employers keep asking for scarce skills. Our sibling guide on the fastest-growing tech careers looks at where the projections point.
- Move to where the pay is. Pay rises sharply between industries and company types. A move from an IT services firm to a software company, or from a small company to a large one, can lift pay more than a promotion.
- Negotiate the whole package. Base is often the hardest number to move; sign-on bonuses and equity can have more room. Ask how bonuses actually paid out in recent years, not just the target.
If you are starting from zero, our list of the best entry-level tech jobs covers the first rung.
Location: the pay premium and its catch
Location still shapes tech pay. CBRE's Scoring Tech Talent 2026 report found average tech talent wages were highest by a wide margin in the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle, and that tech companies pay wages about 15 percent above the US average (2024 data).
The catch is cost of living. A higher salary in an expensive metro can leave you with less after rent than a smaller one somewhere cheaper.
If you want to see what employers post by level and city, the 1752vc careers board lets you filter roles by level and location, and the salary guide shows posted pay by level for startup, AI and VC roles.
"Just chase the highest number"
There's a respectable case for it. Early earnings compound: a higher base raises every future offer anchored to it, and paying off debt early buys freedom.
But.
The top-paying jobs in the table mostly reward years of narrow skill. Choosing a first job purely on pay can lock you into a ladder you don't enjoy, and enjoyment tends to drive the sustained effort those ladders demand. In our view, the higher-value move early on is the job that teaches you the most in a field where pay keeps rising. The money usually follows the skill.
Common mistakes when chasing high-paying tech jobs
- Comparing salary to total compensation. A $180,000 base and a $180,000 total package are very different jobs. Line up the same components.
- Valuing options at paper price. Model a few outcomes, including zero.
- Assuming the bonus is guaranteed. A target bonus is a target. Ask what it paid in recent years.
- Ignoring the experience gates. IT management and network architecture typically require years in related roles, per the BLS. Plan for the ladder rather than applying straight to the top.
Where we land
If you want a single answer: management and specialized engineering roles sit at the top of the BLS data, and big-company total compensation sits far above that.
For most readers, the better question is which ladder to climb. Pick a field with a high ceiling, get the first rung, and keep moving toward rising pay. It's our view, not a formula; debt, location and what you enjoy will change it.
The bottom line
The highest-paying tech jobs are real, but most of them are earned on the fifth step, not the first.
Salary tells you what a job pays.
Total compensation tells you what it might pay, if things go well.
Key takeaways
- By BLS data for May 2025, computer and information systems managers ($175,140 median), computer hardware engineers ($161,740) and research scientists ($140,300) lead tech pay, with software developers close behind at $135,980.
- BLS wage figures exclude stock and year-end bonuses, so they can understate pay at companies that pay heavily in equity.
- Crowdsourced data such as Levels.fyi shows much higher totals, but it leans toward large, high-paying employers.
- Equity at public companies is close to cash; startup options can be worth a lot or nothing, so it helps to model several outcomes.
- Most top-paying roles sit at the end of a career ladder, so choosing the right first rung often matters more than the first salary.
Frequently asked questions
By BLS data for May 2025, computer and information systems managers have the highest median pay among tech occupations, at $175,140, with the top 10 percent above $297,510. Among individual contributor roles, computer hardware engineers ($161,740) and research scientists ($140,300) lead. With stock included, senior engineers at large tech companies can earn more than any of these medians.
Sales engineering and technical sales are common examples: the BLS reports a $124,900 median for sales engineers, mostly paid as salary plus commission or bonus. IT and engineering management also involve little daily coding, though they usually require years of technical work first. Product management pays well at many tech companies, though the BLS does not track it as a separate occupation.
It depends heavily on the employer. Levels.fyi's 2025 End of Year Pay Report puts median entry-level total compensation for US software engineers at $155,000, including salary, stock and bonus, but that data leans toward large tech companies. The BLS reports $82,460 as the 10th percentile wage for all software developers, closer to what many smaller employers pay new hires.
It is worth counting, but at a discount. Startup options are worth something only if the company grows and you can eventually sell, and dilution, exercise costs and taxes all reduce the payout. Carta found employees exercised only about a third of their in-the-money options in 2024. A practical approach is to compare cash first and treat equity as upside.
Generally yes. CBRE's Scoring Tech Talent 2026 report found average tech talent wages highest by a wide margin in the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle. Higher housing and living costs eat into much of that premium, so pay after rent can look similar across cities. Some remote employers also adjust pay based on where you live.
Sources
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Computer and Information Technology Occupations
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Occupational Outlook Handbook, role pages: Computer and Information Systems Managers, Computer and Information Research Scientists, Software Developers, Quality Assurance Analysts, and Testers, Sales Engineers, Computer Hardware Engineers, Computer Network Architects
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: OEWS Frequently Asked Questions
- Levels.fyi: 2025 End of Year Pay Report
- Carta: State of Startup Compensation 2026
- Carta: Two Thirds of Startup Employees Do Not Exercise Their Equity
- CBRE: Scoring Tech Talent 2026
- The Pragmatic Engineer: The Trimodal Nature of Tech Compensation Revisited
- Index Ventures: Rewarding Talent, the Founder's Guide to Stock Options
Disclaimer: This guide is for general education only and is not legal, tax or investment advice. Laws, market data and program terms change, so it may not reflect the latest developments or fit your situation. Treat it as a starting point, not a source of truth, and talk to a qualified lawyer, accountant or financial adviser before you make decisions.
