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Job market reports · Skill · August 2026

optimization

189 live US technical postings name optimization in August 2026. Here is which roles ask for it, what those roles pay, and where they are.

Which roles ask for it

Share of the 189 postings naming optimization that belong to each role. This is the answer to "what would learning this qualify me for".

  1. 1Software Engineer37.6%
  2. 2Data Scientist26.5%
  3. 3Machine Learning Engineer20.1%
  4. 4AI Engineer11.6%
  5. 5Frontend Engineer1.6%
  6. 6Data Engineer1.1%
  7. 7DevOps / SRE / Platform Engineer1.1%

What postings asking for it pay

Across every role, for the postings that both name this skill and disclose a salary. A skill does not cause a salary — senior roles ask for more of everything — so read this as association, not as a raise.

Disclosed pay where optimization is named
n = 51
10th
$143k
25th
$168k
Median
$205k
75th
$255k
90th
$298k

Where those jobs are

Metro share of the postings naming this skill.

  1. 1San Francisco, CA18%
  2. 2Silicon Valley, CA15.9%
  3. 3Remote9%
  4. 4New York, NY6.3%
  5. 5Austin, TX3.2%
  6. 6Boston, MA2.6%
  7. 7Chicago, IL2.6%
  8. 8Los Angeles, CA2.6%

How we counted

457,191 live US postings read directly from 64,697 employers’ own careers pages in August 2026 — not from a jobs aggregator, so a role reposted across several sites is counted once. Full methodology, limitations and external checks.