City ProfileSan Francisco · California · USEditorial

San Francisco

The densest concentration of startup and early-growth hiring on HN. Dominated by AI/ML and infrastructure roles; commands the highest senior compensation of any city in the index.

Postings · Sep 2026−41%3-mo momentum
102
postings
this month
12-Mo Trend · 3-mo rollingOct '25 → Sep '26
90 low3-mo avg · 151192.3333 high
Rank · US
#1of 30 US cities
Remote-friendly · This month
48%−21 pts vs US
Share of US postings
34.5%102 of 372
3-Mo momentum
Falling−41% vs prior 3 mo
§ 00Hiring Volume

Leads US volume and has held a consistent gap over the second-ranked city.

Annual totals for the last five years — every year shown is complete except 2026, hatched because it is still in progress.

Full yearPartial yearAll-time peak
All-time postings
51,061since 2011 · 186 months
+47% YoY2025 vs 2024
2866
'22
1298
'23
1333
'24
1953
'25
1175
'26
All-time total
51,061186 months
↑ Best year
20186096
↓ Worst full year
20231298
Latest full year
2025+47% YoY
§ 01Compensation

Pays 5% over Seattle for senior eng.

Median bands from the 425 San Francisco postings that disclosed USD pay across 2023–Present.

Senior eng · median · 2023–Present
USD190K
+5%vs Seattle
Range by seniority · 2023–Present
Junior$160k – $250k n=19
Mid— n=6
Senior$173k – $211k n=122
Staff+$190k – $260k n=95

Bar = p25 to p75 · tick on Senior = median. Mid shown hatched below the 10-sample floor.

Senior eng median · US peer cities · 2023–Present
Where San Francisco sits in the US distribution
CityMedianvs San Francisco
01
San Franciscoyou are here
$190k—
02
New York
$190k0%
03
Atlanta
$183k−4.0%
04
Seattle
$182k−4.5%

2023–Present disclosed pay only

§ 02Work Model

15 points less remote-friendly than the US baseline.

Trailing-12-month split, plus the yearly remote / hybrid / onsite mix all the way back.

Remote-friendly · Trailing 12 months
54%
−15 ptsvs US · 69%
Remote
25%
Hybrid
30%
Onsite-only
46%
Work-model mix · by year
Remote share is cooling off in '26
RemoteHybridOnsite
'11
66% rem.
'12
61% rem.
'13
64% rem.
'14
62% rem.
'15
39% rem.
'16
25% rem.
'17
29% rem.
'18
31% rem.
'19
36% rem.
'20
60% rem.
'21
87% rem.
'22
91% rem.
'23
86% rem.
'24
75% rem.
'25
58% rem.
'26
52% rem.
Trailing 12 months · San Francisco vs US
San Francisco54% remote-friendly
US average69% remote-friendly
§ 03City Signature

The AI-first hiring market — a title it has held since 2023 and reinforced since.

Keywords counted across 1752 San Francisco hiring posts. Posts frequently list multiple skills.

#01
Top SkillTypeScript
434mentions↑ 28%
Mentions · Last 12 Months
OCT '2525% of postingsSEP '26
Leaderboardlast 12 mo
01TypeScript+28%434
02Python−1%376
03React+2%356
04Node.js+58%214
05Go−20%194
06PostgreSQL−13%186
07Amazon Web Services (AWS)−24%175
08Rust+43%166
09Kubernetes−22%139
10Next.js+22%128
Movers · 12-month change
What’s moving
Trending↗
  • 01ChatGPT+1359%
  • 02Hacker News+539%
  • 03Snowflake+439%
  • 04MacOS+404%
Cooling↘
  • 01Terraform−48%
  • 02GitHub−44%
  • 03Make−36%
  • 04Machine Learning−30%

67% of jobs include at least one technical skill · share of postings mentioning the skill (12 months through Sep 2026)

Role mix · San Francisco vs USShare of postings by role category, past 3 years
San FranciscoUS baseline
Data Ml
match
13%
13%
+0 pts1.0×
Design
match
4%
3%
+1 pts1.4×
Engineering
match
66%
69%
−2 pts1.0×
Executive
match
1%
2%
−0 pts0.7×
Finance Accounting
match
0%
0%
−0 pts0.5×
Healthcare
match
0%
0%
0 pts0.7×
Legal Compliance
match
0%
0%
0 pts1.0×
Marketing
match
4%
3%
+1 pts1.4×
Operations
match
1%
1%
+0 pts1.3×
Other
match
2%
3%
−1 pts0.8×
Product
match
5%
4%
+1 pts1.2×
Sales
match
3%
3%
+0 pts1.1×
§ 04Similar Cities

Where else looks like San Francisco?

Cosine similarity across role mix, work-model split, and skill profile.

CityMatchPosts/moRemote%Sr. median
01
New YorkNew York · US
0.98
13264%$190k02
LondonGB
0.95
4841%$110k03
Los AngelesCalifornia · US
0.94
1716%—04
SeattleWashington · US
0.94
2073%$182k05
AustinTexas · US
0.93
1750%—

Match score = cosine similarity over (category share, work-model split, top-50 skill share)