Software Engineer compensation
Software Engineer Salary at AI Startups (2026)
The median Software Engineer salary at AI startups is $191,000, based on 2045 disclosed job postings ($23,000–$485,000 range). Updated July 2026. These are aggregate figures only; we never publish an individual company's offer.
$23,000Minimum
$191,000Median
$485,000Maximum
Sample size: based on 2045 disclosed salaries.
01
Median Software Engineer salary by funding stage
| Funding stage | Median salary | Sample size |
|---|---|---|
| Seed | $286,250 | 46 |
| Series G | $231,250 | 7 |
| Private Equity | $207,500 | 20 |
| Series F | $202,500 | 67 |
| Series E | $200,450 | 112 |
| Growth | $200,000 | 15 |
| Series D | $199,000 | 299 |
| Series C | $195,000 | 308 |
| Series B | $192,550 | 257 |
| Series G+ | $191,000 | 554 |
| Venture Round | $184,000 | 5 |
| Bootstrapped | $181,500 | 13 |
| Unknown | $179,250 | 6 |
| Series H | $173,000 | 8 |
| Series A | $170,000 | 210 |
| Debt | $160,000 | 113 |
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 2045 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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