What are the current industry benchmarks for setting senior developer hourly rates in high cost of living tech hubs like San Francisco and New York
Download run
Fan-out diagram
The searches the AI actually ran for this prompt.
SEED QUERY
What are the current industry benchmarks for setting senior developer hourly rates in high cost of living tech hubs like San Francisco and New York
1 real search · 1 real-search pass
2026 senior software engineer salary San Francisco New York hourly contract rates freelance developer benchmarkGoogle ↗
OBSERVEDComparison
Badge and edge weight = share of passes that produced the query. Hover a query for its intent and routing format.
Query classes
Google's semantic query class for every sub-query: what kind of answer each search is after, simulated vs real.
ChatGPT real searches (1)
Classes come from the query-classifier (a local Laya model).
Searches and sources
ChatGPT1 real searches · gpt-6
2026 senior software engineer salary San Francisco New York hourly contract rates freelance developer benchmark Google ↗
- Cost to Hire a Software Developer in the US: $85-$135/hr · secondtalent.com
- Freelance developer hourly rates by skill in 2026 · cadence.withremote.ai
- Leafrunner Index · leafrunnerindex.com
- IT Contractor Rates in the Bay Area by Role (2026) · kore1.com
- IT Contractor Rates in New York by Role (2026) · kore1.com
- Developer Hourly Rates by Region: A 2026 Benchmark · hireunicorndevelopers.com