Software Engineer compensation
Software Engineer Salary at AI Startups (2026)
The median Software Engineer salary at AI startups is $200,000, based on 1696 disclosed job postings ($24,000–$550,000 range). Updated October 2026. These are aggregate figures only; we never publish an individual company's offer.
$24,000Minimum
$200,000Median
$550,000Maximum
Sample size: based on 1696 disclosed salaries.
01
Median Software Engineer salary by funding stage
| Funding stage | Median salary | Sample size |
|---|---|---|
| Seed | $300,000 | 54 |
| Series G+ | $220,000 | 351 |
| Series F | $202,500 | 126 |
| Series E | $200,450 | 196 |
| Series D | $200,000 | 233 |
| Series B | $200,000 | 227 |
| Series A | $200,000 | 134 |
| Debt | $198,000 | 30 |
| Series C | $195,500 | 202 |
| Growth | $184,000 | 57 |
| Later Stage VC | $183,500 | 29 |
| Unknown | $176,250 | 21 |
| Private Equity | $163,750 | 30 |
02
How we calculate this
Roughly a quarter of AI-startup postings disclose pay. We extract the USD range from those that do, normalize each to a midpoint, and aggregate across distinct postings (deduplicated by posting ID). The minimum, median, and maximum above are based on 1696 disclosed salaries. We publish aggregate ranges only, never a single company's salary, so the numbers stay representative rather than anecdotal.
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