Software Developers
Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH metropolitan area. Estimated employment 42,310.
Where you sit in the distribution
That is the median — half of software developers in Boston earn more.
$166,090 in Boston buys what $153,400 buys across the country as a whole.
Boston's regional price parity is 108.3 — well above the national average — a dollar here buys noticeably less than in the US as a whole. Adjusted figures for other metros are in the nearby-metros table below.
What comes next
Median offered base pay by seniority for Software Developers in Boston, classified from job titles on visa filings.
The same job, elsewhere in Massachusetts
Adjusted figures apply each metro's regional price parity, so the columns are directly comparable.
| Metro area | Median | Adjusted | RPP | vs. Boston |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boston This page | $166,090 | $153,400 | 108.3 | — |
| Pittsfield | $154,860 | $162,800 | 95.1 | +6.1% |
| Worcester | $146,950 | $143,300 | 102.5 | −6.6% |
| Barnstable Town | $133,690 | $135,900 | 98.4 | −11.4% |
| Springfield | $127,740 | $133,000 | 96.1 | −13.3% |
| Amherst Town | $126,670 | $126,400 | 100.2 | −17.6% |
Price parity and difference against Boston are in the full table on wider screens.
Who pays what
Median offered salary from visa filings, which disclose employer, title and exact figure. Government wage surveys never publish at this level.
| Employer | Median offer | Range | Filings | vs. metro |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Salesforce | $207,701 | $133k – $293k | 24 | +25.1% |
| Meta Platforms | $203,350 | $137k – $302k | 20 | +22.4% |
| Adobe | $199,000 | $120k – $210k | 7 | +19.8% |
| Pricewaterhousecoopers Advisory Services | $190,000 | $145k – $206k | 7 | +14.4% |
| Red Hat | $190,000 | $100k – $378k | 21 | +14.4% |
| The TJX Companies | $189,211 | $145k – $217k | 11 | +13.9% |
| Ibm | $185,547 | $139k – $466k | 21 | +11.7% |
Offer ranges and filing counts are in the full table on wider screens.
How this page was made
- Wage data
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 release. Public domain.
- Price parity
- Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Price Parities, 2024.
- Employer pay
- Department of Labor, Labor Condition Application disclosures, FY 2025. The table draws on 111 certified filings across 7 employers.
- Career ladder
- Seniority classified from job titles on the same visa filings; levels shown only with five or more filings each and a strictly rising progression.
- Employment
- 42,310 employed in this occupation in the metro (BLS estimate; excludes the self-employed).
- Occupation
- SOC 15-1252, Software Developers. Mapped to our taxonomy as software-developers.
Percentiles are reported exactly as released and are never interpolated between published values. Visa filings record offered base salary at time of application, exclude equity and bonus, and skew toward larger employers — treat the employer table as a floor, not an average. We take no payment from employers, recruiters or anyone else for how any figure is presented.