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Job market reports · Skill · August 2026

system design

242 live US technical postings name system design 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 242 postings naming system design that belong to each role. This is the answer to "what would learning this qualify me for".

  1. 1Software Engineer74%
  2. 2Full-Stack Engineer6.2%
  3. 3AI Engineer4.1%
  4. 4Backend Engineer4.1%
  5. 5Machine Learning Engineer3.3%
  6. 6DevOps / SRE / Platform Engineer2.1%
  7. 7Security Engineer1.7%
  8. 8Data Analyst1.2%

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 system design is named
n = 35
10th
$145k
25th
$173k
Median
$205k
75th
$240k
90th
$275k

Where those jobs are

Metro share of the postings naming this skill.

  1. 1San Francisco, CA24.4%
  2. 2New York, NY14.5%
  3. 3Remote12.8%
  4. 4Silicon Valley, CA5.8%
  5. 5Seattle, WA3.7%
  6. 6Boston, MA2.9%
  7. 7Washington, DC2.9%
  8. 8Salt Lake City, UT1.2%

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.