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 · Jun 2026+1%3-mo momentum
136
postings
this month
12-Mo Trend · 3-mo rollingJul '25 → Jun '26
149.6667 low3-mo avg · 168192.3333 high
Rank · US
#2of 30 US cities
Remote-friendly · This month
46%−22 pts vs US
Share of US postings
35.1%136 of 511
3-Mo momentum
Flat+1% 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
50,791since 2011 · 183 months
+47% YoY2025 vs 2024
2866
'22
1298
'23
1333
'24
1953
'25
905
'26
All-time total
50,791183 months
↑ Best year
20186096
↓ Worst full year
20231298
Latest full year
2025+47% YoY
§ 01Compensation

Pays 6% over Seattle for senior eng.

Median bands from the 408 San Francisco postings that disclosed USD pay across 2023–Present.

Senior eng · median · 2023–Present
USD190K
+6%vs Seattle
Range by seniority · 2023–Present
Junior$160k – $250k n=17
Mid— n=6
Senior$173k – $203k n=127
Staff+$178k – $243k n=81

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
$184k−3.3%
04
Seattle
$180k−5.3%

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
56%
−15 ptsvs US · 71%
Remote
26%
Hybrid
30%
Onsite-only
44%
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 Francisco56% remote-friendly
US average71% remote-friendly
§ 03City Signature

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

Keywords counted across 1984 San Francisco hiring posts. Posts frequently list multiple skills.

#01
Top SkillTypeScript
501mentions↑ 30%
Mentions · Last 12 Months
JUL '2525% of postingsJUN '26
Leaderboardlast 12 mo
01TypeScript+30%501
02Python+10%453
03React+4%442
04Node.js+75%264
05Go−9%245
06Amazon Web Services (AWS)−22%233
07PostgreSQL−15%202
08Rust+49%184
09Kubernetes−27%172
10Make+10%148
Movers · 12-month change
What’s moving
Trending↗
  • 01MacOS+2093%
  • 02Snowflake+269%
  • 03Redis+260%
  • 04Vercel+91%
Cooling↘
  • 01Django−46%
  • 02Terraform−39%
  • 03Machine Learning−38%
  • 04Kubernetes−27%

68% of jobs include at least one technical skill · share of postings mentioning the skill (12 months through Jun 2026)

Role mix · San Francisco vs USShare of postings by role category, past 3 years
San FranciscoUS baseline
Data Ml
match
13%
12%
+1 pts1.0×
Design
match
4%
3%
+1 pts1.4×
Engineering
match
67%
69%
−2 pts1.0×
Executive
match
1%
2%
−0 pts0.7×
Finance Accounting
match
0%
0%
−0 pts0.5×
Healthcare
match
0%
0%
0 pts0.8×
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
13736%$190k02
LondonGB
0.95
5653%$110k03
SeattleWashington · US
0.94
2176%$180k04
AustinTexas · US
0.93
1747%$160k05
Washington DCDC · US
0.64
2768%$180k

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