Software Developers
Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO metropolitan area. Estimated employment 27,010.
Where you sit in the distribution
That is the median — half of software developers in Denver earn more.
$137,610 in Denver buys what $130,100 buys across the country as a whole.
Denver's regional price parity is 105.8 — above the national average, so the nominal figure overstates what it buys. 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 Denver, classified from job titles on visa filings.
The same job, elsewhere in Colorado
Adjusted figures apply each metro's regional price parity, so the columns are directly comparable.
| Metro area | Median | Adjusted | RPP | vs. Denver |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boulder | $164,560 | $156,400 | 105.2 | +20.2% |
| Denver This page | $137,610 | $130,100 | 105.8 | — |
| Colorado Springs | $134,280 | $133,300 | 100.7 | +2.5% |
| Fort Collins | $133,990 | $132,500 | 101.1 | +1.9% |
| Greeley | $129,480 | $129,300 | 100.2 | −0.6% |
| Grand Junction | $123,990 | $129,900 | 95.5 | −0.2% |
| Pueblo | $122,780 | $133,800 | 91.8 | +2.9% |
Price parity and difference against Denver 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft | $219,000 | $184k – $223k | 5 | +59.1% |
| Ernst Young U S | $207,300 | $95k – $252k | 6 | +50.6% |
| Charles Schwab | $167,790 | $112k – $245k | 18 | +21.9% |
| Amazon Data Services | $160,000 | $134k – $168k | 5 | +16.3% |
| Amazon Com Services | $159,800 | $100k – $194k | 15 | +16.1% |
| Amazon Web Services | $157,300 | $131k – $178k | 18 | +14.3% |
| Visa Technology Operations | $151,054 | $117k – $172k | 13 | +9.8% |
Offer ranges and filing counts are in the full table on wider screens.
Nominal against real
The same median, once as published and once restated in 2025 dollars.
Published pay rose 12.1% over the five years to 2025. Adjusted for inflation it fell 5.7% — prices rose faster than pay since 2021. The two lines meet at the right edge by construction, since 2025 is the base year.
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 80 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.
- Inflation
- Real figures deflate by CPI-U annual averages (BLS, all items, US city average).
- Employment
- 27,010 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.