How much do tech internships pay? Hourly rates from 1,276 roles
The posted pay of 1,276 open tech internship roles: the median hourly rate by field, by state, and at the employers posting the most.
By Kevin Tang · Updated October 2026
The short answer
Tech internships that post their pay offer a median of about $37 an hour. We read the posted pay of every open internship on the tracker behind Arial's job board that applies through Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever, or Workday on October 29, 2026: 1,276 internship roles at 453 companies listed a rate, and the middle half paid between $27.50 and $50 an hour. Quant internships paid the most, a median of $64.20 an hour, then software at $38.20, hardware at $35, AI, ML, and data at $34.50, and product at about $29. Location matters as much as field: roles in New York and California posted medians of $46 to $47 an hour, against $35 in Texas. Only about half of postings list pay at all, so treat these as the going rate among employers who say, and use them to check an offer, not to rule out a role.
Internship pay is easy to guess at and hard to check. We read the pay that employers post on their own job pages, for every open tech internship we could reach, so you know what a fair rate looks like before an offer arrives.
What we measured
On October 29, 2026, we took every internship marked open on the SimplifyJobs internship tracker, the feed behind Arial's job board, that applies through Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever, or Workday, and read the pay range on its job page: 2,792 postings, leaving out roles only in Canada, which are paid in Canadian dollars, and 68 pages we could not load. 1,469 listed pay. We took the middle of each posted range (the first range when a posting lists several levels or locations) and converted it to an hourly rate at 40 hours a week, dropped 20 figures below $15 or above $200 an hour, such as total-program stipends, and counted a role posted in several cities with the same pay once: 1,276 roles at 453 companies. Posted ranges are base pay; housing, relocation, and bonuses are not included. (SimplifyJobs internship tracker, October 29, 2026 file, and the job pages of its open postings on Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever, and Workday, read that day)
Internship pay by field
Scroll sideways to see every column
| Field | Roles with pay | Median hourly pay | Middle half |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quant | 66 | $64.20 | $38.20 to $95.90 |
| Software | 419 | $38.20 | $28 to $50 |
| Hardware | 267 | $35 | $30 to $45 |
| AI, ML, and data | 450 | $34.50 | $25.50 to $50.80 |
| Product | 74 | $28.80 | $25 to $44.60 |
| All five fields | 1,276 | $36.90 | $27.50 to $50 |
Quant firms pay the most, and the spread inside each field is wide. AI, ML, and data mixes two kinds of job: its 92 roles with analyst or analytics in the title posted a median of $26.80 an hour, and its 102 roles naming machine learning or AI $49, which is why its middle half is the widest of the large fields. Software sits just above the overall median. (SimplifyJobs internship tracker, October 29, 2026 file, and the job pages of its open postings on Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever, and Workday, read that day)
Read nextWhen quant internships open, and which firms post first
Internship pay by state
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| State | Roles with pay | Median hourly pay |
|---|---|---|
| New York | 182 | $47.40 |
| California | 344 | $46 |
| Washington | 51 | $45 |
| Texas | 100 | $35 |
| Massachusetts | 150 | $33.30 |
| Colorado | 51 | $29 |
| Illinois | 88 | $28.60 |
New York, California, and Washington pay $10 to $19 an hour more than Texas, Colorado, or Illinois at the median, a gap larger than the one between most fields. A role listed in several states counts in each of them. Remember the cost of living when you compare offers: the higher rates are in the most expensive cities. (SimplifyJobs internship tracker, October 29, 2026 file, and the job pages of its open postings on Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever, and Workday, read that day)
Employers with the most internships that list pay
Scroll sideways to see every column
| Company | Roles with pay | Median hourly pay |
|---|---|---|
| Astera Labs | 30 | $45 |
| General Motors | 27 | $59.10 |
| Booz Allen | 24 | $41.10 |
| Astranis | 22 | $29 |
| Intel | 21 | $65.90 |
| GlobalFoundries | 17 | $30 |
| Micron Technology | 16 | $46.80 |
| KLA | 15 | $43 |
| Johnson & Johnson | 14 | $38 |
| Visa | 14 | $50.50 |
These are the employers with 14 or more internship roles listing pay. Some post pay by the month or the year rather than the hour: General Motors lists monthly salaries, and Capital One lists yearly ones. At the top of the market, trading firms post weekly pay or yearly salaries that work out to more than $100 an hour. (SimplifyJobs internship tracker, October 29, 2026 file, and the job pages of its open postings on Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever, and Workday, read that day)
How to use these numbers
- Check the posting first. About half list pay, and the posted range is the employer's own statement of what the role pays.
- Compare within a field and a city. A $30 hardware role in Texas and a $47 software role in California can both be fair.
- Count the extras separately. Housing stipends and relocation can add a lot, and they are not in these figures.
- When a form asks for your expected pay, answer with a rate inside the posted range, or the median for the field and state if there is none.
Read nextSalary and the other questions application forms ask
Most tech internships pay more than a typical student job, and the best ones pay a lot more. Knowing the going rate for your field and city means you can spot a fair offer quickly and spend your applications where they count.