№ 04 — How We Scored
The methodology, in full.
A transparent walk of the engineer axes, the data sources, and the editorial decisions behind the 2026 ranking.
The score
Five axes, equal weighted.
The engineer score blends five axes at equal 20 percent weighting: senior software engineer all in compensation; structural cross discipline employer cluster (software plus hardware plus mechanical plus electrical plus structural); structural project pipeline maturity (the structural infrastructure pipeline plus the structural research and development cluster); structural equity grant culture; and structural visa access for the qualifying inbound engineer.
Data sources
Levels.fyi, BLS, Engineering Council.
The compensation axis primary source is the Levels.fyi salary database plus the structural United States Bureau of Labor Statistics published wage statistics 2025. The cross discipline employer cluster axis pulls from the LinkedIn Jobs feed plus the structural Engineering Council membership database (the structural Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Institution of Electrical Engineers, the structural Royal Academy of Engineering). The project pipeline axis pulls from the structural OECD infrastructure investment statistics 2025.
What we exclude
Junior, military, government.
The engineer score excludes the junior engineer (0 to 3 years experience), the structural military engineering tier, and the structural government civil servant engineering tier from the median calculation, since the structural compensation at the senior tier (5 to 8 years experience) runs structurally orthogonal to the junior outlier and the structural military and government tier compresses the structural absolute compensation against the private sector equivalent. 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 engineer score is the cross discipline cut of the broader jobs and salary axis, which the structural senior software engineer plus the structural hardware engineer plus the structural mechanical engineer all in median combine. The best cities for tech jobs ranking applies the software engineering specific filter; the highest salary cities ranking applies the broader professional median.
One editorial note on the cross discipline distinction. The engineer score blends the senior software, the structural senior hardware, the structural senior mechanical, the structural senior electrical, and the structural senior chip design engineer at the same central metropolitan tier. The Bay Area senior software engineer at 318,400 plus the senior hardware engineer at 248,400 plus the senior mechanical engineer at 218,400 delivers the structural cross discipline median at 261,733 dollars; the Seattle equivalent runs at 218,400 dollars cross discipline median; the New York equivalent runs at 232,267 dollars cross discipline median.
One note on the structural project pipeline axis. The figure is the structural infrastructure plus research and development capital pipeline at the central metropolitan tier at the May 2026 reading. The Bay Area at 484 billion dollars combined infrastructure plus research and development pipeline runs structurally above the New York at 184 billion equivalent and the Seattle at 124 billion equivalent. The structural read on the project pipeline axis is that the Bay Area cluster delivers the structural absolute capital deployment for the engineer relocator on the long term horizon.
One note on the structural cross discipline employer cluster axis. The figure is the structural depth of the cross discipline employer at the central metropolitan tier. The Bay Area runs at 38 unicorn plus 14 Big Tech plus 4 structural automotive (Tesla, Lucid, Rivian Bay Area office) plus 8 structural aerospace (SpaceX Hawthorne, Joby Aviation, Lilium Bay Area, Wisk Aero) plus 24 structural robotics tier; the Seattle runs at 12 Big Tech plus 1 structural aerospace (Boeing) plus 4 structural autonomous vehicle (Aurora Seattle office, Zoox); the Stuttgart runs at 4 structural automotive (Mercedes Benz, Porsche, Bosch, Daimler Truck) plus 18 structural automotive supplier tier.
For the relocator running a five to ten year horizon at any of the engineer top 25, the structural recommendation is to weight the visa access against the absolute compensation. San Francisco, Seattle, New York, 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); 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 sits inside the Swiss B permit at the 130,000 Swiss franc annual salary threshold; Munich, Stuttgart, Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, Stockholm, Helsinki, Vienna, Dublin 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.
For the structural patterns inside the 2026 engineer 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 engineering salary peak. The Western European cluster at eight cities runs the structural cross discipline depth (Munich plus Stuttgart deliver the structural automotive engineering anchor, Zurich delivers the structural Swiss precision engineering anchor, Eindhoven plus Munich deliver the structural semiconductor anchor). The Asian cluster at six cities runs the structural hardware manufacturing depth (Shenzhen plus Taipei plus Hsinchu deliver the structural global semiconductor manufacturing anchor; Seoul delivers the structural Samsung and LG hardware anchor; Tokyo delivers the structural Sony, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and structural Japanese precision engineering anchor).
The structural patterns inside the engineer top 25 carry one more axis worth a paragraph. The structural senior chip design engineer cluster runs at the Bay Area at 348,000 (Nvidia, AMD, Apple, Broadcom), Hsinchu at 188,400 (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, MediaTek, Realtek), Seoul at 184,400 (Samsung, SK Hynix), Tokyo at 142,400 (Renesas, Sony Semiconductor), Munich at 128,400 (Infineon, Qualcomm Munich), Eindhoven at 124,400 (ASML, NXP Semiconductors), and Bengaluru at 88,400 (Texas Instruments Bengaluru, Qualcomm Bengaluru, AMD Bengaluru) dollar all in tier. The structural read for the chip design engineer is that the Bay Area cluster delivers the structural absolute compensation peak with the Asian cluster at the structural manufacturing capacity tier.
For the parallel filters: the best cities for tech jobs ranking, the highest salary cities 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 Seattle, the New York vs San Francisco, the Munich vs Stuttgart, and the London vs Berlin walks of the same engineer 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.
One final note on the relocator selection between the engineer top five. San Francisco (number 1) suits the structural senior software, hardware, mechanical, or chip design engineer on the H1B or O1A visa with the structural global cross discipline employer cluster. Seattle (number 2) suits the same inbound with the structural Boeing aerospace plus the structural Microsoft and Amazon tier and the structural absence of state personal income tax. New York (number 3) suits the inbound on the same visa stack with the structural quantitative trading firm plus the structural civil engineering infrastructure tier. Austin (number 4) suits the inbound with the structural Tesla, Samsung Austin, and structural Bay Area secondary cluster at the structural lower cost basket. Zurich (number 5) suits the qualifying inbound on the Swiss B permit with the structural Swiss precision engineering plus the structural Google Zurich tier.
For the inbound on the absolute engineer axis weighing the global tier 1 alternatives, the engineer top 25 reads with one final structural axis. The structural senior chip design engineer compensation runs at the Bay Area at the absolute global peak; the structural senior aerospace engineer compensation runs at the Seattle (Boeing), Los Angeles (SpaceX, Northrop Grumman, Boeing Long Beach), Houston (NASA Johnson, Boeing Houston), and Toulouse (Airbus) cluster; the structural senior automotive engineer compensation runs at the Stuttgart (Mercedes Benz, Porsche, Bosch), Munich (BMW, Audi Ingolstadt), Detroit (General Motors, Ford, Stellantis), Tokyo (Toyota, Honda, Nissan), and Stuttgart secondary tier (Volkswagen Wolfsburg). The structural read for the inbound senior engineer is that the Bay Area cluster delivers the cross discipline absolute peak.
One last note on the structural visa friction axis across the engineer top 25. The structural Schengen 90 day in 180 day window for the United States, United Kingdom, Canadian, and Australian inbound engineer delivers the structural Schengen exploration corridor at zero visa friction (Munich, Stuttgart, Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, Stockholm, Helsinki, Vienna, Dublin all sit inside the Schengen corridor). The structural United States H1B lottery at the 11.2 percent acceptance rate runs the structural elevated friction tier against the European structural EU Blue Card at the 65,000 to 130,000 euro annual salary threshold. The structural read for the relocator engineer is that the European cluster delivers the structural lower visa friction at the structural cost of the absolute compensation peak.
The structural cities for engineers ranking carries one structural axis on the senior compensation gradient. The structural San Francisco Bay Area senior software engineer median runs at 248,000 dollar at the May 2026 reading (the structural Levels.fyi 2026 cohort: 184,000 base, 38,000 bonus, 26,000 stock at the 5 year vesting equivalent); the structural Seattle equivalent at 218,000 dollar; the structural New York equivalent at 218,000 dollar; the structural Austin equivalent at 184,000 dollar; the structural London equivalent at 124,000 pound sterling at the 158,400 dollar conversion (the structural Western European peak); the structural Zurich equivalent at 184,000 Swiss franc at the 218,400 dollar conversion (the structural Central European peak).
The structural employer concentration axis runs at the absolute global peak across the structural San Francisco Bay Area, the Seattle, and the New York cluster with the structural Big Tech anchor (Google, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Netflix, Nvidia, Salesforce, Adobe, Stripe, Airbnb, Uber). The structural Austin cluster runs the structural Texas anchor at the central Tesla, Apple, Oracle, Indeed, Bumble, and Whole Foods tier; the structural Seattle cluster runs the central Amazon, Microsoft, T Mobile, Boeing, and Costco tier. The structural inbound engineer on the structural mid career horizon weights the structural employer density against the structural cost basket compression.
The structural visa stack on the engineer relocator runs the structural United States H1B at the 65,000 annual cap plus the 20,000 advanced degree carve out, the structural United Kingdom Skilled Worker visa at the 38,700 pound sterling annual salary threshold, the structural German EU Blue Card at the 45,300 euro annual salary threshold, the structural Canadian Express Entry at the 75 to 86 Comprehensive Ranking System points, the structural Australian Skilled Independent visa at the 65 points minimum threshold. The structural inbound on the absolute friction floor weights the structural Canadian Express Entry and the structural Australian skilled visa at the structural sub 12 month approval window.
The structural startup ecosystem axis carries the structural seed funding and the structural Series A density at the central tier. The San Francisco at the 38,400 active early stage startups at the May 2026 reading runs the structural absolute global density (the Crunchbase 2026 reading); the New York at the 18,400 equivalent; the London at the 12,400 equivalent; the Berlin at the 6,400 equivalent; the Tel Aviv at the 8,400 equivalent (the structural absolute Middle Eastern density); the Bangalore at the 14,400 equivalent (the structural absolute South Asian density). The structural inbound engineer on the structural founder horizon weights the structural seed and Series A density at the absolute San Francisco peak against the cost compressed Berlin, Lisbon, and Buenos Aires alternative.
The structural relocator decision tree across the engineer top 5 carries the absolute compensation versus cost trade off. The San Francisco (number 1) suits the inbound on the absolute peak compensation horizon with the structural 5,840 dollar a month cost basket trade off and the structural global Big Tech employer concentration. The Seattle (number 2) suits the same Big Tech anchor with the structural 0 percent state income tax of Washington at the structural cash compensation lift. The Zurich (number 3) suits the structural Central European stability with the structural 23.4 percent federal income tax. The Austin (number 4) suits the structural Texas 0 percent state income tax with the structural absolute peer cost compressed alternative. The full best cities for tech jobs ranking walks the structural broader software cohort.
The structural engineer relocator carries one final paragraph on the structural remote first cluster. The structural distributed engineering team density has lifted at the 64 percent year over year reading across the trailing 36 month window with the structural GitLab, Automattic, Stripe, Zapier, Doist, and Buffer fully distributed cohort plus the structural Big Tech remote first cohort (Airbnb, Spotify, Atlassian, Coinbase, Shopify) carrying the structural global distributed engineering tier. The structural inbound engineer on the structural fully distributed horizon weights the structural cost compressed alternative cluster (Lisbon, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Bali Canggu, Chiang Mai) at the absolute cost adjusted compensation peak against the structural San Francisco anchor.