Founding Engineer H-1B wages
Filings decided July 2025 to June 2026. Most are classified as Software Developers (SOC 15-1252).
Employers filed 124 wage applications for Founding Engineer jobs from July 2025 to June 2026, across 91 employers. The median offered wage was $180,000, 5.2% above the government's prevailing wage for the job. Parsed Systems, Inc. filed the most (6, median $161,637).
- Filings
- 124
- Positions covered
- 122
- Employers
- 91
- Median offered
- $180,000
- Median prevailing wage
- $161,637
- Filings since FY2020
- 224
- Median offer change since FY2022
- +35%
Offered wage since 2020
The median wage offered for Founding Engineer jobs rose 35%, from $137,435 in fiscal 2022 to $185,000 in fiscal 2026 so far. In fiscal 2026 it was 5.5% above the prevailing wage. Filings peaked in fiscal 2025, with 61 filings.
Middle half of offered wagesMedian offered wageMedian prevailing wageFilings per year
Fiscal years run October to September. Fiscal 2026 is still running: these figures cover October 2025 to June 2026.
Founding Engineer by fiscal year
| Fiscal year | Filings | Median offered | vs year before | Median prevailing | vs prevailing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (Oct to Jun) | 107 | $185,000 | +12.5% | $161,637 | +5.5% |
| 2025 | 61 | $164,431 | −2.8% | $156,863 | +3.2% |
| 2024 | 32 | $169,229 | +9.2% | $147,368 | +2.5% |
| 2023 | 9 | $155,000 | +12.8% | $140,483 | +6.7% |
| 2022 | 10 | $137,435 | n/a | $126,329 | +5.7% |
| 2021 | 2 | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| 2020 | 3 | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Employers that file for this title
Middle half of offered wagesMedian offered wageMedian prevailing wage
| Employer | Filings | Median offered | Offered range and prevailing wage | vs prevailing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Parsed Systems, Inc. | 6 | $161,637 | at the minimum | |
| Tessera Labs Corporation | 5 | $200,000 | +44.7% | |
| DiligenceSquared Inc. | 3 | $160,805 | at the minimum | |
| YMTM Inc. | 3 | $190,000 | +43.9% | |
| DealOps Inc. | 3 | $170,000 | +5.2% | |
| micro1 inc. | 2 | $215,000 | +14.5% | |
| Artie Technologies Inc. | 2 | $194,000 | +3.4% | |
| Merlin AI, Inc. | 1 | $230,000 | +7.7% | |
| Sunday Robotics, Inc. | 1 | $285,000 | +51.8% | |
| Kumo.ai, Inc. | 1 | $145,000 | +4.7% | |
| PointOne Technologies, Inc. | 1 | $150,000 | +13.6% | |
| Sumble, Inc. | 1 | $130,000 | +19.6% | |
| S2 Labs Inc. | 1 | $114,795 | at the minimum | |
| Lemi, Inc. | 1 | $146,500 | +0.1% | |
Showing the 14 employers with the most filings of 91. Employers with fewer than 5 filings in total are counted but not named.
Where Founding Engineer jobs are filed
| Worksite | Filings | Median offered | Offered range and prevailing wage | vs prevailing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Francisco, CA | 52 | $180,000 | +2.1% | |
| New York, NY | 18 | $175,000 | +14.3% | |
| Palo Alto, CA | 7 | $226,138 | +6.5% | |
| Brooklyn, NY | 5 | $190,000 | +25.0% | |
| Mountain View, CA | 4 | $215,000 | +14.5% | |
| San Jose, CA | 3 | $150,000 | at the minimum | |
| San Mateo, CA | 3 | $205,000 | +11.4% | |
| Burlingame, CA | 2 | $212,500 | +7.5% | |
| Cambridge, MA | 2 | $218,000 | +22.4% | |
| Newport Beach, CA | 2 | $225,000 | +21.9% | |
| Piedmont, CA | 2 | $247,500 | +15.9% | |
| Santa Clara, CA | 2 | $170,943 | +0.2% | |
| Apex, NC | 1 | $175,000 | +29.2% | |
| Atlanta, GA | 1 | $130,562 | at the minimum | |
| Austin, TX | 1 | $150,000 | +7.8% | |
| Bellevue, WA | 1 | $240,000 | +13.1% | |
| Belvedere Tiburon, CA | 1 | $140,000 | +3.2% | |
| Boston, MA | 1 | $748,800 | +448.4% | |
| Champaign, IL | 1 | $130,000 | +19.6% | |
| Chicago, IL | 1 | $153,317 | at the minimum | |
| Gardena, CA | 1 | $160,000 | +1.8% | |
| Menlo Park, CA | 1 | $115,000 | +0.2% | |
| Nashua, NH | 1 | $748,800 | +448.1% | |
| Newark, CA | 1 | $250,000 | +17.1% | |
| Pittsburgh, PA | 1 | $84,219 | at the minimum | |
Seniority of the jobs filed
The government assigns each job one of four wage levels. A higher level means a higher legal minimum.
What these numbers are
- They are wages employers attested to on Labor Condition Applications (Form ETA-9035), not paychecks. Bonuses and stock are not included.
- A filing is not a visa or a hire. One filing can cover several positions, and some are later withdrawn. Wage figures use certified filings only.
- The prevailing wage is the minimum the employer must pay for that job in that area, set from government wage surveys.
- 7 filings are for part-time work. Hourly wages are shown as full-time equivalents (2,080 hours a year).
Source: U.S. Department of Labor, OFLC disclosure data. How we clean and count it.
Related job titles
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- Staff Software Engineer$191,634
- Senior Data Engineer$139,152
- Senior Software Developer$129,667
- Software Dev Engineer III$204,700
- Software Engineer II$131,627