By the Connecting Odds Research Team
Key takeaways
- Across 925 US listings with salary data in our October 2026 sample, the middle posted pay band sits at about $142,000 a year. The lower quarter of listings centers near $100,000 and the upper quarter near $195,000.
- Product management, DevOps and platform roles, and software engineering post the highest typical bands. Design and finance roles post lower, with wider spreads.
- About half of the salaried US listings in our sample mention AI skills. Listings that ask for cloud platforms, TypeScript, or machine learning post top-of-range pay around $210,000 to $246,000.
- Only about 1 in 5 listings shows a salary at all. If you are hiring, posting a range already puts you ahead of most of the market.
- Every figure here is base pay from live job postings. Total compensation usually runs higher once bonus and equity are counted.
How to read this guide
Salary guides only help if you know what the numbers are. Ours come from a sample of 5,100 live listings on Connecting Odds, pulled on October 13, 2026. Of those, 1,115 carried usable US-dollar salary data, and 925 were US roles. Hourly and monthly figures were converted to annual pay, and implausible figures were excluded.
For each field below, we took the middle of every posted range and show three points: the lower quarter (25th percentile), the middle (50th), and the upper quarter (75th). Read them the way employers write ranges:
- Lower quarter: less experience, smaller markets, or narrower versions of the role.
- Middle: the typical posting for a solid, experienced hire.
- Upper quarter: deep experience, scarce skills, or expensive metros.
Two honest caveats. First, our listings skew toward technology roles, because that is where posted pay is most common. This is a tech-weighted snapshot, not a census of the whole labor market. Second, these are posted ranges from employers, not a survey of what people currently earn. For a specific company, role, and city, the [Salary Explorer](/salaries/explorer) goes deeper, and it is free.
The headline numbers
Across all US listings with salary data in the sample, the middle posted band is $142,000, with the lower quarter at $100,000 and the upper quarter at $195,000.
Pay bands by field (US listings, base pay, per year):
| Field | Listings | Lower quarter | Middle | Upper quarter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Product management | 17 | $204,000 | $209,000 | $214,000 |
| DevOps, SRE and platform | 17 | $166,000 | $209,000 | $209,000 |
| Software engineering | 94 | $169,000 | $196,000 | $211,000 |
| Data, AI and machine learning | 18 | $157,000 | $186,000 | $207,000 |
| Sales | 24 | $105,000 | $171,000 | $267,000 |
| Marketing | 17 | $128,000 | $147,000 | $195,000 |
| Design (product and UX) | 39 | $115,000 | $143,000 | $168,000 |
| Finance and accounting | 28 | $100,000 | $112,000 | $179,000 |
A few patterns worth knowing:
- Product and platform roles cluster at the top, and their bands are tight. A tight band means employers agree on what the role is worth. If you are negotiating there, the range in the posting is close to the real range.
- Sales has the widest spread in the guide. The upper quarter is pulled up by a minority of very high postings, and sales pay often mixes base and commission in ways a single range hides. Read sales postings line by line.
- Senior and staff software roles post slightly higher medians than other software roles in our sample, about $202,000 against $192,000 at the middle. The premium exists, but in posted ranges it is smaller than most people expect. Scope and level matter more than the word "senior" itself.
- Healthcare, clinical, and customer support roles rarely post pay at all. Too few US listings in those fields carried dollar salaries to publish a responsible band (fewer than 10 each). That is a finding in itself: in the fields where our [Q3 hiring insights](/blog/q3-2026-hiring-insights-what-90-000-new-jobs-and-4-1-unemployment-mean-for-your--ey79s) show the most hiring, pay is the least visible.
The skills that post the highest pay
Fields tell one story. Skills tell another. These are the skills whose US listings post the highest top-of-range pay at the middle of the sample:
| Skill in the posting | Listings | Middle top-of-range |
|---|---|---|
| Product management | 61 | $246,000 |
| TypeScript | 51 | $225,000 |
| JavaScript | 56 | $225,000 |
| Java | 43 | $225,000 |
| Google Cloud (GCP) | 63 | $225,000 |
| Microsoft Azure | 52 | $225,000 |
| AWS | 82 | $225,000 |
| Machine learning | 55 | $224,000 |
| Kubernetes | 43 | $210,000 |
| Go | 179 | $200,000 |
| Artificial intelligence | 457 | $196,000 |
| Python | 186 | $180,000 |
The loudest signal is the last-but-one row. Artificial intelligence appears in 457 of the 925 salaried US listings, about half. AI is no longer a niche premium skill in postings; it is close to a default expectation in tech hiring, and it still posts above-average pay. The cloud trio (AWS, Azure, GCP) and Kubernetes show the classic scarcity pattern: fewer listings, higher top-end pay.
This lines up with the wider market. Robert Half's 2026 Salary Guide reports most hiring managers offering higher pay for specialized skills, with AI, machine learning, and data roles seeing the strongest projected gains. Our listings data says the same thing from the employer side: the premium is real, and it is posted in the open.
Base pay is not the whole offer
Every number in this guide is base salary, because that is what postings state. Total compensation typically runs 15 to 60 percent higher once bonus, equity, and benefits are counted, and the gap widens at senior levels.
That cuts both ways in a negotiation. A lower base with real equity can beat a higher base with none, but only if you price the equity honestly. And a posted range is a starting position, not a verdict: the [Salary Explorer](/salaries/explorer) shows how a specific company's range compares by role, location, and experience, which is the version of this data you want open during an offer call.
For job seekers: how to use this guide
- Find your field's middle number before you apply. If a posting's range sits far below it, the role is priced under market and you should know that going in.
- Check the range before you invest hours. Tailoring a resume and preparing for interviews is real work. Spend it on roles that can pay what you need. Our [2026 playbook](/blog/how-to-beat-applicant-tracking-systems-in-2026-kpac0) covers the full order of operations.
- Negotiate from the band, not from hope. "The middle of the posted band for this role is X, and my experience maps to the upper part of it" is a stronger sentence than any round number.
- Price the whole package. Ask what sits on top of base: bonus target, equity, signing bonus, and benefits. Then compare totals, not bases.
For employers: the transparency gap is an opening
Only about 1 in 5 listings in our sample shows a salary. Job seekers notice. In a steady but selective market, a clear range is one of the cheapest ways to get more and better-matched applications, and it filters out candidates whose expectations you cannot meet anyway. Posting a job on Connecting Odds is free, and the salary field is right there in the form.
Frequently asked questions
Where does this data come from? From live job listings on Connecting Odds, sampled on October 13, 2026: 5,100 listings, of which 925 US roles carried usable US-dollar salary data. Figures are posted employer ranges converted to annual base pay, not survey responses.
Why does this guide lean toward tech roles? Because tech employers post salaries far more often than other fields. Rather than invent numbers for fields with thin data, we publish the bands we can support and say where the gaps are.
Is the middle number what I should earn? It is the middle of what employers are posting for the field, not a personal valuation. Your experience, location, and the specific company's band matter more. Use it as a reference point, then check your exact role in the Salary Explorer.
Does a higher posted range mean a better job? Not always. Check what the range includes, especially in sales, where base and commission are often blended, and compare total compensation rather than the headline number.
How often will this guide update? We plan to refresh it from live listings each quarter, alongside our hiring insights reports.