Software engineers design, build, and maintain software applications and systems — by far the largest occupation in H-1B visa sponsorship. Based on 504,680 certified H-1B and PERM filings from U.S. Department of Labor disclosure data, the median sponsored salary for a Software Engineer is $113,110 per year.
| Percentile | Annual salary |
|---|---|
| 10th (entry) | $81,765 |
| 25th | $94,411 |
| 50th (median) | $113,110 |
| 75th | $136,000 |
| 90th (senior) | $159,994 |
Every other salary site shows the LCA-posted wage — the wage for the position. Using USCIS I-129 petition data, we can compare that against the actual pay the sponsored worker received, and the prevailing-wage floor, across 140,550 matched Software Engineers petitions.
The median worker is paid 3.2% above the posted LCA wage, but the mean actual pay runs 18.2% above the mean posted wage — so the upside is concentrated in the top earners. 25.8% are paid above their posted wage, 73.0% at it, and 1.3% below.
Actual-pay data covers FY2021–FY2024 cap-subject H-1B lottery petitions matched to certified LCAs (aggregates only). Base wage excludes equity and bonuses, so it is not total compensation. Source: I-129 petition data sourced from USCIS, obtained by Bloomberg.
Of 504,680 filings, 12,135 are H-1B (temporary work visa) and 492,545 are PERM (green-card labor certification, 98% of the total).
| # | Employer | Filings | Avg. salary |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Microsoft Corporation | 25,405 | $129,628 |
| 2 | Google LLC | 19,524 | $128,203 |
| 3 | AMAZON.COM SERVICES LLC. | 15,727 | $118,545 |
| 4 | COGNIZANT TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS CORPORATION | 13,969 | $80,372 |
| 5 | Facebook, Inc. | 7,428 | $144,981 |
| 6 | Oracle America, Inc. | 5,902 | $129,346 |
| 7 | APPLE INC. | 5,825 | $154,693 |
| 8 | Intel Corporation | 5,408 | $106,361 |
| 9 | AMAZON CORPORATE LLC | 5,032 | $98,950 |
| 10 | INFOSYS TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED | 4,280 | $89,744 |
| 11 | Cisco Systems Capital Corporation | 4,244 | $126,796 |
| 12 | CAPGEMINI AMERICA INC | 3,170 | $102,270 |
| 13 | WAL-MART ASSOCIATES, INC. | 3,080 | $129,429 |
| 14 | TATA CONSLTANCY SERVICES LIMITED | 2,937 | $141,843 |
| 15 | LinkedIn Corporation | 2,815 | $156,028 |
| 16 | Deloitte LLP | 2,775 | $104,034 |
| 17 | Amazon Web Services Inc | 2,561 | $123,995 |
| 18 | Bloomberg L.P. | 2,492 | $131,840 |
| 19 | VMWARE, INC. | 2,451 | $130,071 |
| 20 | COMPUNNEL SOFTWARE GROUP, INC | 2,363 | $98,894 |
| State | Filings | Avg. salary |
|---|---|---|
| California | 127,672 | $133,959 |
| Washington | 52,500 | $122,378 |
| Texas | 50,423 | $97,247 |
| New Jersey | 38,095 | $106,324 |
| New York | 25,588 | $126,169 |
| Illinois | 18,658 | $102,006 |
| Massachusetts | 15,422 | $112,181 |
| Michigan | 14,113 | $91,695 |
| Virginia | 13,659 | $109,481 |
| Pennsylvania | 12,130 | $98,038 |
| Georgia | 11,261 | $104,579 |
| Florida | 9,407 | $95,434 |
Specific titles employers file under this occupation. Click through for a per-title salary profile.
Salaries are the certified offered annual wage on public U.S. Department of Labor H-1B (LCA) and PERM disclosure filings, not a guarantee of pay. Occupation is the DOL-assigned Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) code.