Job Placement · Technology · Software Engineer
Software engineer is a job title, not a job. BLS separates software developers at a $135,980 median from computer programmers at $100,390, and metro medians for the same occupation run from $106,870 in Indianapolis to $213,110 in San Jose. BEG scopes which market you are hiring in, then places permanently on milestone billing from $9,381.
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TL;DR
Most stalled software engineer searches are scoping failures rather than sourcing failures. The title spans three separate federal occupations with a $35,590 gap between two of them, and metro medians for the single largest of those occupations run from $106,870 to $213,110. Decide which occupation, which discipline and which geography the seat belongs to and the search becomes ordinary. BEG scopes that first, then places permanently at $9,381 to $11,257 for a junior or mid seat and $12,864 to $15,437 for a senior or lead one, billed against milestones rather than as a share of the salary.
Why The Title Is The Problem
Because the req has not decided what it is buying. Three different federal occupations wear this title, they are moving in opposite directions, and the same occupation is priced twice as high in one metro as another.
Four Decisions That Have To Land First
Which occupation, which discipline, which geography and which level. Each one moves the pay band and the pool size, and leaving any of them open produces a shortlist nobody wants.
| The decision | What the data says it is worth | What happens if it stays open |
|---|---|---|
| Occupation, not just title | Software developer, computer programmer and QA analyst are three BLS occupations with medians of $135,980, $100,390 and $104,300. | You advertise a developer salary for programmer work and get overqualified applicants who leave, or the reverse and get nobody at all. |
| Discipline | US respondents to the 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey reported median total compensation of $175,000 back end, $170,000 mobile, $145,000 front end and $138,000 full stack. | A single band quoted for all four disciplines reads generous to front end candidates and insulting to back end ones. The good ones self-select out first. |
| Geography, including remote | Metro medians run from $106,870 to $213,110 in the same OEWS release. | An open remote posting quietly benchmarks you against the most expensive metro in the country while your budget was written against the cheapest. |
| Level and its ceiling | The 10th percentile is $82,460 and the 90th is $214,670 for software developers nationally, a 2.6x band inside one occupation. | Candidates at both ends apply, the loop cannot compare them, and four weeks go by before anybody admits the req meant two different jobs. |
BEG runs these four decisions in the discovery call rather than discovering them at offer stage, because a req that changes shape halfway through is the most expensive thing that happens in a technical search. Level-specific detail sits on the mid-level software engineer and senior software engineer pages. Full scope on the technology placement service page.
What A Percentage Fee Does To A Geography Decision
A contingency recruiter charges a share of first-year salary, so the same search costs you a different amount depending on where the engineer lives. Benchmarked to the $106,870 Indianapolis median, a 20 percent fee is $21,374 and 25 percent is $26,718. Benchmarked to the $213,110 San Jose median, the same percentages are $42,622 and $53,278. Identical work, identical process, up to $31,904 of difference in what you pay for it. BEG prices the seat as a Tier II engagement at $9,381 to $11,257, or Tier III at $12,864 to $15,437 for senior and lead scope, agreed before sourcing and unchanged by the offer you land on.
What The Empty Seat Is Costing While You Decide
At the $135,980 national median, a budgeted and unfilled engineering seat is roughly $2,615 a week of capacity you have already planned around and are not receiving. That is before the second-order cost, which is that the work does not disappear, it lands on the engineers who are still there. A twelve-week search is about $31,400 of planned capacity, which is more than the entire Tier II fee three times over. Speed is not a luxury item on this req.
Who Actually Employs The Engineer
The tech market is full of firms selling all three under similar language. The single question that separates them is whose payroll the engineer sits on when the work starts.
| Model | Who employs the engineer | How you pay | Right when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contract or staff augmentation firm | The firm, not you | Hourly or daily rate with a margin, for as long as the engagement runs | The work is a defined project with an end date, or you need capacity faster than a permanent hire can start. |
| Contingency recruiter | You | Percentage of first-year salary on placement, $21,374 to $53,278 depending on the metro you benchmark against | You want no invoice until somebody starts, and you accept that the fee rises with every dollar you add to the offer. |
| BEG permanent placement | You | Tier II milestone fee of $9,381 to $11,257, or Tier III at $12,864 to $15,437, fixed before sourcing | The seat is permanent headcount, and you want the cost known in advance with a 45-day replacement term. |
BEG does not employ engineers, does not bill hourly and does not place contractors, so staff augmentation is not something we sell or compete with. If a fixed-scope project is what you actually have, a contract firm is the right call and saying so on the call costs you nothing. Adjacent seats: DevOps engineer recruiting.
FAQ
A software engineer at the junior or mid band is a Tier II search at $9,381 to $11,257, billed against defined milestones. A senior or lead seat moves to Tier III at $12,864 to $15,437. The fee is set by the seat you scope, not by the salary you eventually agree, which is the opposite of how a percentage fee behaves.
Not in the federal data, and the difference matters when you write the advert. BLS reports a $135,980 median for software developers against $100,390 for computer programmers, and projects software developers to grow 10 percent from 2025 to 2035 while computer programmers decline 7 percent. Two titles, two pools, a $35,590 gap.
By a factor of two on the same occupation code. OEWS puts the San Jose metro median at $213,110 and Indianapolis at $106,870 for May 2025. Before you benchmark an offer, decide whether the seat is tied to an office, tied to a time zone, or genuinely open, because each of those buys a different candidate pool at a different number.
No, and self-reported data shows the spread clearly. In the 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, US respondents reported median total compensation of $175,000 for back end, $170,000 for mobile, $145,000 for front end and $138,000 for full stack. That is survey data rather than BLS, but the ordering is consistent enough to plan a req around.
No. A staffing or staff augmentation firm employs the engineer and bills you an hourly or daily rate for as long as the contract runs. BEG places a permanent software engineer who your company employs directly, on payroll, from day one. If you need a contractor for a fixed piece of work, that is a different purchase and we will say so.
OEWS counted 1,687,890 people in the software developer occupation in May 2025 with a mean wage of $148,100 and a median of $135,980. The Occupational Outlook Handbook projects about 106,100 openings a year across software developers, QA analysts and testers over the 2025 to 2035 decade.
Because the people you want are already employed and are not reading postings. The 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey found 45.6 percent of developers were not looking for a new role at all, with a further 28.8 percent only considering somewhat. A posting reaches the smallest and least selective slice of the market.
It depends on how long the codebase has to live. Naming a language narrows the pool to people who already use it and shortens ramp. Naming fundamentals widens the pool and lengthens ramp. What fails is naming eleven technologies as required, because that filters for people who list keywords rather than people who ship.
23 to 35 days from discovery call to signed offer on average, based on isolved placement data, with an 86 percent fill rate on active searches. The variable that moves that number most is how fast your own interview loop schedules, not how fast candidates are found.
A 45-day replacement guarantee applies, plus 50 percent off a repeat search for the same seat. Read the replacement term in any recruiter agreement closely, including ours, because a guarantee that only covers voluntary departures inside 30 days is worth very little in a market where counteroffers arrive late.
Yes, and the pay data says you may be more competitive than you think. BLS reports software developer medians of $136,330 in manufacturing, $135,680 in management of companies and $135,460 in finance and insurance, all above the $132,050 median in computer systems design services. The pitch is different, the money is not a handicap.
Contingency charges a share of first-year salary only on placement, so the fee grows every time the offer grows and the recruiter is paid to close, not to fit. Milestone billing charges a fixed fee against agreed stages of the search. On a San Jose offer that difference is tens of thousands of dollars.
Hiring across the engineering org? See junior software engineer, mid-level software engineer, senior engineer and tech lead and engineering manager, or all technology placement.
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