New grad software engineer salary: what 806 tech roles pay
The posted base salaries of 806 open new grad tech roles: the median by field, by state, and at the employers posting the most.
By Kevin Tang · Updated October 2026
The short answer
New grad tech jobs that post their pay offer a median base salary of about $114,000. We read the posted pay of every open role on the new grad tracker behind Arial's job board that applies through Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever, or Workday on October 29, 2026: 806 roles at 394 companies listed a salary, and the middle half paid between about $89,000 and $145,000. New grad software engineers posted a median of $125,000, quant roles $175,000, hardware $110,000, and AI, ML, and data $100,625, pulled down by analyst roles. New York and California roles posted medians of about $132,000, and Washington $127,500. These are posted base salary ranges; bonuses and equity, which can be large at tech and trading firms, are not included. A little over half of postings list pay, so use these to judge an offer, not to skip a role.
Your first salary sets the baseline for every raise after it. We read the salary ranges employers post for open new grad roles, so you can tell a fair offer from a low one.
What we measured
On October 29, 2026, we took every role marked open on the SimplifyJobs new grad tracker, the feed behind Arial's job board, that applies through Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever, or Workday, and read the pay on its job page: 1,699 postings, leaving out roles only in Canada, 33 pages we could not load, and 29 contract AI training and rating gigs. 953 listed pay. We took the middle of each posted range (the first range when a posting lists several levels or locations) as a yearly salary, converting hourly rates at 2,080 hours a year, dropped 43 figures below $40,000, almost all hourly contract roles, and counted a role posted in several cities with the same pay once: 806 roles at 394 companies. These are base salaries; bonuses and equity are not included. (SimplifyJobs new grad tracker, October 29, 2026 file, and the job pages of its open postings on Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever, and Workday, read that day)
New grad salaries by field
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| Field | Roles with pay | Median base salary | Middle half |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quant | 37 | $175,000 | $133,750 to $210,000 |
| Software | 341 | $125,000 | $94,375 to $146,454 |
| Product | 38 | $115,875 | $95,000 to $150,800 |
| Hardware | 200 | $110,000 | $90,000 to $135,000 |
| AI, ML, and data | 190 | $100,625 | $73,000 to $144,425 |
| All five fields | 806 | $114,400 | $89,354 to $145,000 |
Software pays more than product and hardware at the median. AI, ML, and data has the lowest median and the widest spread, because the field mixes analyst roles (45 with analyst or analytics in the title, a median of $86,320) with roles naming machine learning or AI (40, a median of $145,727) that pay more than software. Quant roles start well above everything else. (SimplifyJobs new grad tracker, October 29, 2026 file, and the job pages of its open postings on Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever, and Workday, read that day)
New grad salaries by state
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| State | Roles with pay | Median base salary |
|---|---|---|
| New York | 118 | $132,600 |
| California | 212 | $132,000 |
| Washington | 61 | $127,500 |
| Illinois | 50 | $121,043 |
| Texas | 68 | $109,075 |
| Massachusetts | 52 | $100,625 |
| Colorado | 46 | $100,000 |
| Virginia | 45 | $98,500 |
New York and California are close to even at the top, with Washington about $5,000 behind. Texas sits a little below the overall median, and Massachusetts, Colorado, and Virginia further below. A role listed in several states counts in each of them. (SimplifyJobs new grad 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 new grad roles that list pay
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| Company | Roles with pay | Median base salary |
|---|---|---|
| SpaceX | 30 | $137,500 |
| GlobalFoundries | 20 | $115,500 |
| Pennsylvania State University | 15 | $133,404 |
| Shield AI | 14 | $120,330 |
| Applied Materials | 13 | $118,250 |
| Analog Devices | 12 | $85,498 |
| Booz Allen | 12 | $96,050 |
| CACI | 12 | $93,650 |
| Northrop Grumman | 12 | $90,900 |
| Anduril | 11 | $130,500 |
| The Aerospace Corporation | 11 | $120,000 |
These are the employers with 11 or more new grad roles listing pay. Apart from Penn State, whose postings show broad bands covering every pay grade of the job (most often $92,100 to $174,708), they are in defense, aerospace, and chips, with medians from about $85,000 to $138,000. Some, like SpaceX, post a separate range for each engineering level, and we used the first one listed. (SimplifyJobs new grad 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
- Read the posted range before you apply. A little over half of postings list one, and it tells you whether the role is worth the time.
- Compare offers within a field and a state, not against the highest number you have heard.
- Ask what is not in the range: signing bonus, annual bonus, equity, and relocation.
- If a form asks for your salary expectation, give a number inside the posted range.
Median new grad salaries differ by about $75,000 between fields, and the ranges inside each field are wider still. Knowing the posted range for your kind of role turns an offer from a guess into a number you can judge.