software engineering jobs in 2026 — demand, top roles hiring, and related skills
As of 2026-05-17, software engineering appears in 3,655 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the past 90 days — most often required for Software Engineer roles, with demand down 45% vs the prior 4 weeks.
Last updated · 90d ending 2026-05-17
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Frequently asked questions about software engineering
+Is software engineering in demand in 2026?
Yes. software engineering appears in 3,655 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the 90 days ending 2026-05-17, with demand down 45% vs the prior 4 weeks. It is most often required for Software Engineer roles (30% of Software Engineer postings list it).
+What jobs require software engineering?
According to the Skillenai jobs index over the 90 days ending 2026-05-17, the job titles most likely to require software engineering are Software Engineer (30% of postings list software engineering), Engineering Manager (10% of postings list software engineering), Staff Software Engineer (3% of postings list software engineering).
+What skills are commonly paired with software engineering?
Across job postings indexed by Skillenai (90 days ending 2026-05-17), software engineering most often appears alongside Python, machine learning, Distributed systems, testing, TypeScript.
+Where is software engineering most in demand?
As of 2026-05-17, the metro areas posting the most jobs requiring software engineering are San Francisco, New York City, London, Bengaluru, Seattle, according to the Skillenai jobs index.
+How can I keep up with new software engineering content and jobs?
Skillenai indexes news, blog posts, and research papers mentioning software engineering alongside the jobs index. You can subscribe to a daily email digest of new software engineering content from your Skillenai account.
Weekly job postings requiring software engineering — last 90 days
Job titles most likely to require software engineering
| Role | Postings mentioning | % requiring |
|---|---|---|
| Software Engineer | 1,087 | 29.7% |
| Engineering Manager | 372 | 10.2% |
| Staff Software Engineer | 108 | 3.0% |
| Software Engineering Manager | 106 | 2.9% |
| Director of Engineering | 66 | 1.8% |
| Product Manager | 64 | 1.8% |
| Forward Deployed Engineer | 62 | 1.7% |
| Machine Learning Engineer | 51 | 1.4% |
| AI Engineer | 46 | 1.3% |
| Research Engineer | 42 | 1.1% |
Top metros hiring for software engineering
| Name | Postings | Share |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | 432 | 34.8% |
| New York City | 312 | 25.1% |
| London | 185 | 14.9% |
| Bengaluru | 66 | 5.3% |
| Seattle | 59 | 4.7% |
| Paris | 58 | 4.7% |
| Toronto | 50 | 4.0% |
| Mountain View | 42 | 3.4% |
| Singapore | 39 | 3.1% |
Skills commonly paired with software engineering
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How this was computed
Counts derive from the Skillenai jobs index over the 90 days ending 2026-05-17. Skills are resolved against the Skillenai canonical taxonomy, so the same entity is counted whether a posting writes 'Python', 'Python 3', or 'python'. Pages refresh weekly (or daily for the top-50 most-requested skills).
- source
- Skillenai jobs index, deduplicated daily
- entity_id
- 37278e53b96ca2ed
- data_as_of
- 2026-05-17
- window_days
- 90
The demand, skills, and geo numbers on this page come from the same Skillenai labor market index that powers our API. Use it for compensation benchmarking, hiring-competition analysis, and skill-adoption tracking.
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