Technology & IT · Hiring guide
In Stack Overflow's 2025 survey, 84% of developers used or planned to use AI tools while 46% distrusted their accuracy, so the engineer worth hiring is the one who can tell good code from almost-right code. Careerscape's technology recruiters specialize in engineering roles and work as one remote team that recruits across the whole country.
What changed
The federal definition of the work has not changed much. BLS describes software developers as people who analyze what users need, design each part of an application and plan how the parts fit together, then test, maintain and document what they built. Writing the code was always one step in that chain. With AI assistants in daily use, it is now the step that matters least in an interview.
Stack Overflow's 2025 Developer Survey, with more than 49,000 responses, shows how far this has gone. Half of professional developers (50.6%) said they use AI tools every day. The most common frustration, named by 66% of respondents, was AI output that is almost right, but not quite. And 45% said debugging AI-generated code is time-consuming.
For a hiring manager, that changes the test. A timed puzzle solved from a blank screen mostly measures recall. The skills that now decide whether a hire works out are reading unfamiliar code, catching the subtle bug, designing for failure, and explaining a trade-off to someone who is not an engineer. Ask every candidate how they use AI tools and how they check the results.
Credentials carry less weight here than in infrastructure roles. BLS lists a bachelor's degree as the typical entry-level education, and notes that some employers prefer a master's. Most software roles need no license. A cloud certification can show familiarity with a platform, but it says little about engineering judgment, so ask for code, a design write-up or a walk-through of past work instead.
Interview kit
Use these in a 60-minute technical conversation. They work whether or not you allow AI tools during the interview, as long as you tell candidates the rule in advance.
Listen for: They find the real defect (an unhandled edge case, a missing permission check, a leaked secret), separate blocking issues from style notes, and ask what tests cover the change.
Listen for: A clear timeline, their own role stated honestly, the root cause rather than the symptom, and a lasting fix to monitoring, tests or process. No blaming teammates.
Listen for: A specific workflow, verification habits such as running tests and reading every diff, and awareness of what should never go into a prompt, like credentials or customer data.
Listen for: Clarifying questions before diagrams, a sensible data model, retries and queues, idempotency, and a plain account of what they would build now versus later.
Listen for: Honest self-critique tied to a principle they learned, such as simpler interfaces, better naming or more testable boundaries.
Listen for: No jargon, a recommendation with its cost and risk, and a sense of what would change their mind.
BLS pay
These are BLS national percentiles for software developers from May 2025. The middle half earned between $105,210 and $171,980 a year, and the median was $135,980.
Middle half of all workers (25th to 75th percentile)
Titles do not map exactly to percentiles. In general, early-career engineers and roles in lower-paying metros cluster around the 10th to 25th percentiles, mid-level engineers near the median, and staff-level or highly specialized engineers in the top-paying metros at the 75th and above. Base pay is only part of many engineering offers. See the software engineer Salary Guide for ranges by level. Annual pay, all U.S. employers, BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025), occupation: Software Developers. Pay by level and city: Software Engineer salary guide.
Specialties
"Software engineer" is a family of jobs. Put the specialty in the title and the first line of the posting, since each one is screened differently. For pipeline and infrastructure automation roles, see our DevOps engineer guide; for site and front-end builds, see web developer.
Where the pool is
New York City employs the most software developers of the metros we track (121,000), followed by Seattle (92,770). Concentration tells a different story. Seattle's location quotient of 4.1 means developers hold about four times their national share of local jobs, ahead of San Francisco (2.68), Austin (2.28) and Washington, DC (2.03).
| Market | Jobs | Median pay · vs. U.S. | Concentration |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York City | 121,000 | $166,830+23% | 1.17 |
| Seattle | 92,770 | $167,280+23% | 4.10 |
| Washington, DC | 69,060 | $154,930+14% | 2.03 |
| San Francisco | 69,030 | $186,640+37% | 2.68 |
| Dallas | 67,030 | $133,290−2% | 1.52 |
| Los Angeles | 55,540 | $160,920+18% | 0.82 |
| Boston | 42,310 | $166,090+22% | 1.44 |
| Chicago | 40,370 | $134,380−1% | 0.82 |
| Atlanta | 36,300 | $132,960−2% | 1.16 |
| Austin | 31,960 | $134,120−1% | 2.28 |
| Phoenix | 29,380 | $131,750−3% | 1.14 |
| Philadelphia | 28,480 | $133,040−2% | 0.91 |
| Minneapolis | 27,410 | $130,920−4% | 1.29 |
| Denver | 27,010 | $137,610+1% | 1.55 |
| Detroit | 24,870 | $130,760−4% | 1.20 |
| Houston | 22,940 | $129,440−5% | 0.64 |
| Charlotte | 20,820 | $135,920±0% | 1.41 |
| San Diego | 20,610 | $163,270+20% | 1.23 |
| Miami | 18,900 | $132,650−2% | 0.62 |
| Portland | 18,260 | $156,000+15% | 1.39 |
| Baltimore | 16,850 | $138,900+2% | 1.14 |
| Tampa | 14,230 | $130,450−4% | 0.91 |
| Raleigh-Durham | 12,580 | $132,770−2% | 1.56 |
| Pittsburgh | 10,320 | $124,500−8% | 0.85 |
| Nashville | 7,750 | $126,610−7% | 0.65 |
| Hartford | 6,010 | $132,520−3% | 0.92 |
| Providence | 5,020 | $130,690−4% | 0.65 |
| Buffalo | 3,960 | $127,850−6% | 0.68 |
| Albany | 3,280 | $127,910−6% | 0.67 |
Pay is driven by a handful of coastal hubs. San Francisco's median is $186,640, and Seattle, New York City, Boston and San Diego all exceed $160,000. Yet 19 of these 29 metros sit below the U.S. median of $135,980. If the role is remote, decide early whether you will pay one national band or adjust by location, because a candidate in Pittsburgh (median $124,500) and one in San Francisco will read the same offer very differently. Metro figures are BLS OEWS estimates for May 2025. For technology hiring by city, start from the technology industry overview. Software Developers, by metro area, sorted by jobs. BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025; U.S. median $135,980. Concentration is the BLS location quotient: above 1.0 means the job is a bigger share of local employment than nationally.
Template
Replace the bracketed parts. Keep the must-have list short: each extra requirement shrinks the pool. Put the specific framework and domain needs under nice-to-have unless the person truly cannot start without them.
[Company] is hiring a software engineer to design, build and maintain [product or system] used by [users]. You will own features from design to production, review teammates' code, and help keep the system reliable as usage grows.
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Share the stack, the level, the pay range and whether the role is remote, hybrid or on-site.
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FAQ
A software engineer designs, builds and maintains applications and systems. BLS lists the core duties as analyzing users' needs, designing each part of an application and how the parts work together, recommending upgrades, testing and maintaining software, and documenting it for future work. In practice, much of the job is now reviewing and correcting code, including code produced by AI tools, and working with product and design teams on what to build.
Use contract staffing for a defined project, a deadline or a skill you need for a few months, such as a migration or an integration. Choose direct hire when the person will own a core system for years, because knowledge of your codebase builds over time. Contract-to-hire is a middle path when you want to see real work before committing.
BLS says the typical entry-level education is a bachelor's degree, and some employers prefer a master's. Most software roles do not need a license. Cloud certifications show knowledge of a specific platform, which can help for infrastructure-heavy work, but they do not prove someone can design and debug software. A code sample, a take-home review exercise or a walk-through of past projects tells you more.
Not as of early October 2026. A federal court in Massachusetts ruled the fee from the September 2025 proclamation unlawful on June 8, 2026, and on July 24 the First Circuit declined to pause that ruling, so USCIS may not collect the fee for now. The government's appeal is still pending and a later proclamation sought to extend the fee, so confirm the status with immigration counsel before you file.
Either choice can work if you decide in advance and tell candidates. If you allow AI tools, make the exercise a review or debugging task, where the tool cannot do the thinking for them. If you do not, say so and keep the problem small. What matters is that every candidate gets the same rules and that the exercise looks like the real job.
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