Public salary data is mostly wrong — Glassdoor and salary.com are self-reported, skewed toward job-hunters, and can be 25-40% off for specific role × market pairs. The bands below are pulled from Raffi's internal offer dataset — every customer who hired through the platform in Q1 2026, calibrated against Levels.fyi for senior tech to ensure we're not systematically off. Use floor / median / stretch as the realistic range, multiply by 0.65 for junior or 1.35 for senior (5-8y) or 1.75 for lead (8y+). Q1 2026 deltas: sales +4-8%, backend +6-12% (AI-infra-adjacent strongest), frontend flat, PM +3-5%, design flat-to-down. This guide is the operator playbook for setting comp without overpaying or losing offers.
How to use these tech salary 2026 bands
Tech salary 2026 bands move every quarter and vary by role × market × seniority — a single "average" number is almost always wrong by 25-40% for any specific hire you're actually making. The right way to use this guide: pick the closest role band below as your anchor, multiply by the seniority modifier (0.65 junior · 1.0 mid · 1.35 senior · 1.75 lead), then adjust by location modifier (SF Bay = 1.0 reference · NYC ~0.95 · London ~0.65 · Berlin ~0.55 · Dubai ~0.50 · Bangalore ~0.30). Floor / median / stretch are the three offers you should be ready to make: floor for cost-conscious candidates who like the mission, median for the typical close, stretch for the rare must-hire. The rest of this guide explains where the data comes from and walks the bands role-by-role.
Why salary data is usually wrong
Glassdoor and salary.com are mostly aggregated self-reports from people who voluntarily filled out a form on their site. The sample is heavily skewed — toward people who are job-hunting, toward US/EU markets, toward roles where this kind of disclosure is normalized (sales, engineering). It's not zero-signal but it's noisy enough that for any specific role × market, the published number can be off by 25-40%. The Robert Half 2026 Salary Guide is a useful sanity check for US-tech medians; their methodology is straight-from-employer placements which is less skewed than self-report data.
Levels.fyi is better for senior tech (real offer data, broken down by company), but coverage of non-tech roles is thin and non-US markets are sparse.
The data we're publishing below comes from Raffi's internal offer dataset — every Raffi customer who's hired through the platform in Q1 2026, by role × market × experience level. It's calibrated against Levels.fyi for senior tech roles (so we know we're not systematically off) and includes mid-funnel offer-stage data, not just accepted offers.
How to read these numbers
- Floor = bottom of the realistic offer range. Below this you'll struggle to attract qualified applicants. SHRM's 2025 benchmarking flags below-floor offers as the #1 cause of offer-decline.
- Median = the 50th percentile of actual offers extended to mid-level (3-5y) candidates in Q1 2026.
- Stretch = top of the realistic range. Reserve this for proven top performers.
- Junior = multiply by 0.65. Senior (5-8y) = multiply by 1.35. Lead (8y+) = multiply by 1.75.
- All numbers are base cash compensation. Equity, bonus, and benefits are on top.
The bands (monthly USD, mid-level)
| Role | Dubai | Riyadh | Cairo | London | Berlin | Bangalore | New York | San Francisco |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SDR | $3,500 | $3,200 | $800 | $4,200 | $3,800 | $900 | $5,800 | $6,800 |
| AE | $6,500 | $6,000 | $1,800 | $7,500 | $6,800 | $1,900 | $11,000 | $13,000 |
| Backend Engineer | $6,800 | $6,200 | $2,200 | $8,000 | $7,500 | $2,400 | $14,500 | $17,000 |
| Frontend Engineer | $6,500 | $6,000 | $2,100 | $7,500 | $7,200 | $2,300 | $13,500 | $16,000 |
| Product Manager | $8,500 | $8,000 | $3,000 | $10,000 | $9,500 | $3,200 | $17,000 | $20,000 |
| Product Designer | $6,500 | $6,000 | $2,200 | $7,500 | $7,000 | $2,300 | $12,500 | $15,000 |
Get the full table (all 13 roles × all 13 markets, plus juniors/seniors/leads) via the Salary Calculator.
Where the market is moving (Q1 2026 deltas vs Q4 2025)
- Sales (SDR, AE): Up 4-8% across the board. The post-2024 sales-team rebuild is creating demand.
- Backend / DevOps engineers: Up 6-12%, with the strongest movement in AI-infrastructure-adjacent roles. The LinkedIn Workforce Report Q1 2026 specifically flags ML-ops + AI-infra as the fastest-growing salary categories.
- Frontend engineers: Roughly flat. Lots of supply.
- Product managers: Up 3-5%. Less volatile.
- Product designers: Flat to down 2-5%. Mid-2025 layoffs put more designers on the market than the demand caught up to.
- Cairo, Bangalore, Lisbon: Outsourcing markets up 10-15% as US/EU companies expand hire-anywhere policies.
How to actually decide what to pay
Three-step framework:
- Look up the median for the exact role × market × experience level you're hiring. That's your default.
- Adjust for the role's strategic importance. Mission-critical hire? Pay closer to stretch. Backfill? Floor or just-above-floor is fine.
- Check what your direct competitors pay. If you can find this from LinkedIn, AngelList, or by asking candidates what they were offered. If you're materially below competitors, you'll lose offers.
For salary negotiation, the band above is what you publish; the offer you make depends on the specific candidate's strengths and current comp. Always ask the candidate's current salary expectation early — saves time.
A compliance note
Salary band publication is no longer optional in much of the US. Colorado's Equal Pay Act, California Senate Bill 1162, New York City Local Law 32, and similar laws in Washington and Maryland require salary ranges in any job post visible to residents of those states. Even outside those jurisdictions, SHRM's 2025 benchmarking confirms salary transparency is now the largest single driver of qualified-applicant conversion. Publish the band.
Want help hiring at these bands?
Post a role with the salary band you decided on — start free in Raffi. $25 starter credit, no card, Raffi screens every applicant in 10-15 min and hands you the top 3-5. No hire fees, ever — so the salary band you publish is the only money you pay.