Software Developers
San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA metropolitan area. Estimated employment 20,610.
Where you sit in the distribution
That is the median — half of software developers in San Diego earn more.
$163,270 in San Diego buys what $145,900 buys across the country as a whole.
San Diego's regional price parity is 111.9 — 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.
The same job, elsewhere in California
Adjusted figures apply each metro's regional price parity, so the columns are directly comparable.
| Metro area | Median | Adjusted | RPP | vs. San Diego |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Jose | $213,110 | $193,000 | 110.4 | +32.3% |
| San Francisco | $186,640 | $161,400 | 115.6 | +10.6% |
| San Diego This page | $163,270 | $145,900 | 111.9 | — |
| Los Angeles | $160,920 | $141,700 | 113.6 | −2.9% |
| Oxnard | $159,430 | $144,200 | 110.5 | −1.2% |
| Santa Maria | $158,290 | $145,500 | 108.8 | −0.3% |
| Santa Cruz | $156,910 | $142,800 | 109.9 | −2.2% |
| Napa | $153,130 | $136,100 | 112.6 | −6.8% |
Price parity and difference against San Diego 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meta Platforms | $211,654 | $175k – $278k | 9 | +29.6% |
| Microsoft | $194,000 | $162k – $215k | 15 | +18.8% |
| Nvidia | $184,974 | $177k – $220k | 8 | +13.3% |
| Apple | $172,824 | $120k – $201k | 165 | +5.9% |
| Sony Interactive Entertainment | $172,100 | $110k – $206k | 23 | +5.4% |
| Resmed Digital Health | $162,000 | $104k – $194k | 7 | −0.8% |
| Asml US | $157,581 | $127k – $177k | 22 | −3.5% |
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 24.8% over the five years to 2025. Adjusted for inflation it still rose 5.0% — pay has outrun prices 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 249 certified filings across 7 employers.
- Inflation
- Real figures deflate by CPI-U annual averages (BLS, all items, US city average).
- Employment
- 20,610 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.