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 · Aug 2026−32%3-mo momentum
72
postings
this month
12-Mo Trend · 3-mo rollingSep '25 → Aug '26
101.3333 low3-mo avg · 158192.3333 high
Rank · US
#2of 30 US cities
Remote-friendly · This month
59%−11 pts vs US
Share of US postings
29.8%72 of 296
3-Mo momentum
Falling−32% 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
50,959since 2011 · 185 months
+47% YoY2025 vs 2024
2866
'22
1298
'23
1333
'24
1953
'25
1073
'26
All-time total
50,959185 months
↑ Best year
20186096
↓ Worst full year
20231298
Latest full year
2025+47% YoY
§ 01Compensation

Pays 4% over Seattle for senior eng.

Median bands from the 415 San Francisco postings that disclosed USD pay across 2023–Present.

Senior eng · median · 2023–Present
USD190K
+4%vs Seattle
Range by seniority · 2023–Present
Junior$160k – $250k n=17
Mid— n=6
Senior$173k – $203k n=120
Staff+$185k – $248k n=91

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
Washington DC
$185k−2.6%
04
Seattle
$183k−3.7%

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
55%
−15 ptsvs US · 70%
Remote
26%
Hybrid
30%
Onsite-only
45%
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
53% rem.
Trailing 12 months · San Francisco vs US
San Francisco55% remote-friendly
US average70% remote-friendly
§ 03City Signature

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

Keywords counted across 1804 San Francisco hiring posts. Posts frequently list multiple skills.

#01
Top SkillTypeScript
458mentions↑ 39%
Mentions · Last 12 Months
SEP '2525% of postingsAUG '26
Leaderboardlast 12 mo
01TypeScript+39%458
02Python+8%405
03React+8%386
04Node.js+54%219
05Go−14%209
06Amazon Web Services (AWS)−19%192
07PostgreSQL−15%186
08Rust+53%175
09Kubernetes−23%145
10Next.js+14%125
Movers · 12-month change
What’s moving
Trending↗
  • 01Hacker News+546%
  • 02MacOS+285%
  • 03Snowflake+180%
  • 04Redis+155%
Cooling↘
  • 01Terraform−49%
  • 02GitHub−40%
  • 03Machine Learning−37%
  • 04Make−26%

66% of jobs include at least one technical skill · share of postings mentioning the skill (12 months through Aug 2026)

Role mix · San Francisco vs USShare of postings by role category, past 3 years
San FranciscoUS baseline
Data Ml
match
13%
12%
+0 pts1.0×
Design
match
4%
3%
+1 pts1.3×
Engineering
match
67%
69%
−2 pts1.0×
Executive
match
1%
2%
−0 pts0.7×
Finance Accounting
match
0%
0%
−0 pts0.6×
Healthcare
match
0%
0%
0 pts0.7×
Legal Compliance
match
0%
0%
0 pts1.1×
Marketing
match
4%
3%
+1 pts1.4×
Operations
match
1%
1%
+0 pts1.3×
Other
match
2%
3%
−1 pts0.7×
Product
match
5%
4%
+1 pts1.1×
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
13360%$190k02
LondonGB
0.96
5255%$110k03
SeattleWashington · US
0.94
2044%$183k04
Los AngelesCalifornia · US
0.94
1557%—05
AustinTexas · US
0.93
17100%—

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