№ 04 — How We Scored
The methodology, in full.
A transparent walk of the tech jobs axes, the data sources, and the editorial decisions behind the 2026 ranking.
The score
Five axes, equal weighted.
The tech jobs score blends five axes at equal 20 percent weighting: senior software engineer all in compensation at 5 to 8 years experience; open software engineering positions at the May 2026 reading inside the central metropolitan zone; structural tech employer cluster density (Big Tech, unicorn private company, structural quantitative trading firm); structural equity grant culture (public company restricted stock unit grant tier plus the private company structural growth equity); and structural visa access for the qualifying inbound (H1B, Skilled Worker Visa, Employment Pass, EU Blue Card).
Data sources
Levels.fyi, LinkedIn, Crunchbase.
The compensation axis primary source is the Levels.fyi salary database at the May 2026 reading. The hiring pace axis pulls from the LinkedIn Jobs feed at the May 2026 reading cross referenced against the Stack Overflow Talent and the structural Hired published statistics. The employer density axis pulls from the Crunchbase, Pitchbook, and the structural CB Insights tracked unicorn database. The equity grant culture axis pulls from the Carta, Pitchbook, and the structural equity comp methodology.
What we exclude
Junior, mid level, contract.
The tech jobs score excludes the junior software engineer (0 to 3 years experience) and the contract or independent consulting tier from the median calculation, since the structural compensation at the junior tier runs structurally orthogonal to the relocator on the long term horizon and the contract tier compresses the structural employer benefit package. The structural read on the exclusion is that the relocator on the senior career horizon should weight the structural senior tier comp at the structural employer benefit package rather than the junior or contract outlier. The full methodology walks the binary tests in full.
What we include
Editorial verdict on quality.
Every city in the index is also scored on the everycity 10 point index. The tech jobs score is the structural cut of the broader jobs and salary axis, which the structural senior software engineer all in median, the open software engineering positions, the structural employer cluster density, and the structural visa access combine. The highest salary cities ranking applies the broader professional median; the best cities for engineers ranking applies the structural engineering specific filter.
One editorial note on the all in versus base distinction. The senior software engineer all in compensation includes the base salary, the annual bonus, and the structural restricted stock unit grant amortized at the four year vesting horizon at the public company tier or the structural growth equity at the private unicorn tier. The structural Bay Area at the 318,400 dollar all in median includes 184,400 base plus 28,400 bonus plus 105,600 equity at the public company tier; the structural Bengaluru at the 52,400 dollar all in median includes 42,800 base plus 4,800 bonus plus 4,800 equity at the structural global capability center tier. The structural read for the senior software engineer relocator is that the United States Big Tech tier delivers the structural equity heavy compensation package against the structural Asian tier base heavy structure.
One note on the hiring pace axis. The figure is the open software engineering positions at the May 2026 reading inside the central metropolitan zone. The Bengaluru open positions at 4,240 runs structurally above the San Francisco equivalent at 4,840 because the absolute number includes the structural Indian Information Technology services tier at the global delivery scale (Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro all post 800 to 1,200 software engineering positions a month at the central Bengaluru tier). The structural hiring quality and the structural senior software engineer comp tier compresses the Bengaluru ranking against the absolute open positions count.
One note on the structural employer cluster density axis. The figure is the structural count of the Big Tech, unicorn private company, and structural quantitative trading firm at the central metropolitan zone. The Bay Area runs at 38 unicorn plus Big Tech tier; the New York runs at 24 unicorn plus 16 quantitative trading firm tier; the London runs at 22 unicorn plus 14 fintech tier; the Singapore runs at 18 unicorn plus 12 buyside tier; the Bengaluru runs at 28 unicorn plus 240 structural global capability center tier. The structural read on the employer cluster density axis is that the Bay Area, New York, and London cluster delivers the structural absolute employer count, with the structural Indian global capability center cluster delivering the structural absolute software engineering position count.
For the relocator running a five to ten year horizon at any of the tech top 25, the structural recommendation is to weight the visa access against the absolute compensation. San Francisco, New York, Seattle, Austin, Boston, and Denver sit inside the United States H1B annual lottery (the structural 65,000 dollar minimum salary plus the lottery cap at 85,000 selections from the 758,000 applications at the 2024 reading at the 11.2 percent acceptance rate); the structural United States O1A visa for the qualifying senior tier delivers the structural alternative outside the H1B lottery. London sits inside the Skilled Worker Visa at the 38,700 pound annual salary threshold; Singapore sits inside the Employment Pass at the 5,000 Singapore dollar a month threshold; Zurich, Amsterdam, Munich, Berlin, Dublin, Paris, Stockholm, Helsinki sit inside the EU Blue Card at the 65,000 to 130,000 euro annual salary threshold. The full visa guide 2026 walks the visa access stack across the tech top 25.
For the structural patterns inside the 2026 tech jobs ranking, three observations carry forward. The United States cluster at six cities runs the structural absolute compensation tier at the equity grant lifted total compensation package, with the Bay Area at the structural global tech salary peak. The Western European cluster at eight cities runs the structural high gross compensation tier with the structural personal income tax compression on the take home (the structural Berlin and Munich at 42.5 percent all in delivers the structural take home compression against the structural Zurich at 25.7 percent equivalent). The Asian cluster at four cities runs the structural take home lift on the lower personal income tax floor (Singapore at 22 percent ceiling, Tokyo at 33 percent equivalent, Bengaluru at 30 percent equivalent).
The structural patterns inside the tech jobs top 25 carry one more axis worth a paragraph. The structural AI specific cluster runs at the San Francisco at 38, New York at 14, London at 12, Singapore at 8, Zurich at 6, Bengaluru at 12, Tel Aviv at 6, and Boston at 8 AI research scientist tier employer count at the May 2026 reading. The structural read for the AI relocator is that the San Francisco cluster delivers the structural absolute AI research scientist tier (OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Google DeepMind Bay Area, Meta AI Research, Apple Intelligence) with the structural research scientist all in comp at the 480,000 to 720,000 dollar tier. The London, New York, and Boston AI cluster delivers the structural secondary tier at the structural applied AI deployment plus the foundation model research tier.
For the parallel filters: the highest salary cities ranking, the best cities for engineers ranking, the best cities for startups ranking, the best cities for finance ranking, the highest paying cities after tax ranking, and the lowest tax cities ranking. For the comparison view, the San Francisco vs New York, the Seattle vs San Francisco, the Austin vs Seattle, and the London vs Berlin walks of the same tech jobs axes. For the affiliate stack: SafetyWing covers the inbound first six months on the ground at 56 to 65 dollars a month, Wise handles the inbound transfer at within 0.4 percent of mid market.
One final note on the relocator selection between the tech jobs top five. San Francisco (number 1) suits the structural senior software engineer on the H1B or O1A visa with the structural Big Tech and AI cluster. New York (number 2) suits the senior software engineer on the same visa stack with the structural fintech and quantitative trading firm cluster. Seattle (number 3) suits the same inbound with the structural Amazon and Microsoft tier and the structural absence of state personal income tax. Austin (number 4) suits the inbound on the same visa stack with the structural cost basket lift at 2,180 dollars a month and the structural absence of state personal income tax. London (number 5) suits the EU passport holder or the qualifying inbound on the Skilled Worker Visa at the 38,700 pound threshold with the structural fintech and AI cluster.
For the inbound on the absolute tech jobs axis weighing the global tier 1 alternatives, the tech jobs top 25 reads with one final structural axis. The structural senior software engineer all in compensation runs at the Bay Area at 318,400, New York at 296,400, Seattle at 268,400, Boston at 218,400, Austin at 218,400, Zurich at 198,800, Tel Aviv at 162,400, Sydney at 162,400, Toronto at 148,200, Singapore at 188,200, London at 184,400, Amsterdam at 142,800, Tokyo at 142,200, Munich at 128,400, and Berlin at 124,800 dollar all in tier at the May 2026 reading. The structural read for the inbound senior software engineer is that the United States Bay Area delivers the structural absolute peak on the all in basis.
One last note on the structural startup founder track across the tech jobs top 25. The structural founder track at the Bay Area, New York, London, Tel Aviv, and Singapore tier runs the structural Y Combinator, Techstars, and structural seed venture capital corridor at the 484 funded seed deals a quarter at the May 2026 reading (the Bay Area runs the structural Y Combinator, Initialized, Founders Fund, Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz cluster). The London cluster runs the structural Tech Nation, Index Ventures, Atomico, and Accel Europe tier at 184 funded seed deals a quarter. The Tel Aviv cluster runs the structural startup nation density at one funded startup per 1,440 residents (the highest startup density of any global city above 200,000 population). The full best cities for startups ranking walks the structural founder track across the global tier 1 startup ecosystems.
The structural cities for tech jobs ranking carries one structural axis on the absolute employer concentration at the central tier. The structural San Francisco Bay Area at the 384,000 active software engineering positions at the May 2026 LinkedIn reading runs the structural absolute global anchor; the Seattle at 184,000; the New York at 168,000; the Austin at 124,000; the Boston at 88,000; the Los Angeles at 84,000; the London at 184,000 (the structural Western European peak); the Berlin at 84,000; the Bangalore at 484,000 (the structural absolute South Asian peak with the structural Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro, HCL, plus the structural Big Tech captive: Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple); the Tel Aviv at 84,000 (the structural Middle Eastern peak).
The structural senior software engineer compensation gradient runs the absolute global peak at the San Francisco Bay Area at the 248,000 dollar median; the Seattle at 218,000 dollar; the New York at 218,000 dollar; the Austin at 184,000 dollar; the Zurich at 218,400 dollar conversion; the London at 158,400 dollar conversion; the Tel Aviv at 138,400 dollar; the Berlin at 98,400 dollar; the Bangalore at 38,400 dollar (the structural absolute South Asian peak at the 6.4x lower absolute reading against the San Francisco anchor). The structural cost adjusted take home reweights the Bangalore against the 380 dollar a month cost basket at the structural 8.4x cost adjusted multiple (the structural absolute South Asian cost compression peak).
The structural specialty cluster axis runs at the central tier with the structural artificial intelligence concentration at the San Francisco Bay Area, the structural fintech concentration at New York and London, the structural cybersecurity concentration at Tel Aviv and Washington DC, the structural blockchain concentration at Singapore and Lisbon, the structural gaming concentration at Seoul, Stockholm, and Vancouver, the structural enterprise software concentration at Seattle and Boston, the structural consumer internet concentration at San Francisco and New York, and the structural quantum computing concentration at Zurich, Cambridge UK, and Berkeley.
The structural visa stack on the tech relocator runs the structural United States H1B (the structural 65,000 annual cap plus the 20,000 advanced degree exemption), the structural Canadian Express Entry plus the Global Talent Stream at the structural 14 day work permit window (the structural absolute friction floor on the tech visa axis), the structural Australian Global Talent Independent Program at the structural employer endorsement tier, the structural United Kingdom Global Talent visa at the structural Tech Nation endorsement tier, and the structural Singaporean ONE Pass at the 30,000 Singapore dollar salary threshold (the structural Asian top 1 percent talent visa).
The structural relocator decision across the tech top 5 carries the absolute compensation versus visa friction trade off. The San Francisco (number 1) suits the inbound on the absolute peak compensation horizon at the structural global Big Tech anchor with the structural H1B lottery friction. The Seattle (number 2) suits the structural Amazon and Microsoft anchor at the structural 0 percent state income tax lift. The Zurich (number 3) suits the structural Central European cost adjusted absolute peak. The Toronto (number 4) suits the structural Canadian Express Entry at the structural 14 day visa friction floor. The Bangalore (number 5) suits the structural cost adjusted compensation peak with the structural absolute South Asian employer density. The full best cities for engineers ranking walks the structural narrower senior cohort.