You're scrolling through job postings and you see a title that matches your experience. The role sounds interesting, the company is solid, and you're curious. But when you reach the salary range, there's nothing. Or worse, the range is so wide it tells you almost nothing. How do you know if this job is even worth your time? And if they call you, what number do you have in your head when they ask what you're looking for?
Most tech workers wing it. They guess based on what a friend mentioned, or what they made at their last job, or what they saw on a job board once. And then they either leave money on the table or price themselves out of opportunities. The antidote is simple: research your market rate ahead of time so you walk into any conversation with your own number.
Start with Your Role and Level
Market rate isn't one number. It's a range that shifts based on what you do, how senior you are, and where you're located. The first step is to get specific about your own position.
Define your role as accurately as possible. "Software engineer" is too broad. Are you a backend engineer, frontend engineer, full-stack engineer, or infrastructure engineer? Each has its own market. Do the same for your level. If your title is "Senior Engineer," make sure you understand what that means at the companies you're targeting. Some companies call people "senior" at 5 years of experience; others wait until 10. Compare yourself to the level of work you actually do, not just your title.
Once you've nailed those, search public salary data for your exact role and level. Look for sources that aggregate postings and self-reported data across companies and regions. Cast a wide net. The more data you see, the clearer the pattern becomes.
Factor in Total Compensation, Not Just Salary
Here's where a lot of tech workers get stuck: they focus on base salary and ignore the rest. In tech, especially at higher levels, base salary is often not the whole story.
Know the pieces: Base salary is what you get paid in cash every year. Bonus is often 10 to 20 percent of base at larger companies, though it varies wildly. Equity comes as stock options or RSUs (restricted stock units). It's part of your future value, but it takes years to fully vest, and the company's future matters too. Then there are benefits: health insurance, retirement match, stock purchase plans, tuition reimbursement, and more. Some of these have real dollar value.
When you're comparing two offers or sizing up your market rate, add them up. A junior engineer at a startup might see 100 percent of comp in base salary. A senior engineer at a large public company might see 50 percent base, 20 percent bonus, and 30 percent in equity. Those are different pictures, and you need to see the full one.
Adjust for Location and Cost of Living
A $150,000 salary means something very different in San Francisco than it does in Nashville. The market rate for your role varies by location, sometimes dramatically.
If you're remote, you're already ahead: more data points, more options. If you're in a tech hub, the local market is usually well-documented. If you're in a smaller city or rural area, you may see less transparency, but you can still anchor to what big companies offer for remote roles in your area, or adjust the coastal rate downward based on cost-of-living indices.
Don't automatically peg yourself to San Francisco rates if you're anywhere else. You'll either price yourself out of opportunities or get lowballed because you haven't done the homework.
Build Your Own Data Set
Start a simple spreadsheet. For every job posting you see in your role and level, note the company, the location (or remote status), the salary if shown, any other comp mentioned, and the posting date. Over a week or two, you'll have dozens of data points. Over a month, hundreds. The outliers will be obvious, and the real range will emerge.
If a posting doesn't show salary, make a note. About 4 in 10 live tech postings do not show a salary we can read. That's frustrating, but it's also useful data: it tells you which companies aren't being transparent, and which industries or levels tend to keep comp private.
When you're done, sort by location and level. Look for the 25th percentile, the median, and the 75th percentile. That range is your market. The median is where half the jobs are at and above. The 75th percentile is what the high-paying opportunities look like. Use the median as your anchor and the range to set your expectations.
Account for Your Own Specifics
Raw market data is a starting point, not your final number. Factor in your own context.
Experience: Three years or ten years? Be honest about how that stacks up against the median for your level in your market. If you're at the lower end of a given level, use the lower end of the range. If you're at the higher end, aim higher.
Specialized skills: Do you know a language or tool that's in high demand but short supply? That can move you up. Do you have expertise in a slower market (COBOL, say) that fewer people want? That might move you down.
Gaps: If you're switching industries or jumping up a level, you may not yet command the full market rate for that role. That's okay. Know where you stand and price accordingly.
Job security and perks: A stable, large company with great health insurance and a retirement match is different from a pre-seed startup with equity but no stability. If you're trading cash for risk, know it.
Use Your Number When You Talk to Recruiters
Now that you know your market rate, use it. When a recruiter asks "What's your target salary?" or "What were you making before?", you have an answer. Give a range, not a point. If your market data says the median for your role is $160,000 and the 75th percentile is $190,000, you might say "I'm targeting 170 to 190." That's specific, grounded, and gives room to negotiate.
If a job posting is silent on pay, and it's a role you're interested in, ask. Most recruiters will tell you. If they won't, that's a signal about the company's approach to transparency.
And if a company comes back with an offer that's significantly below your market rate, don't assume they can't pay more. Sometimes they can, and your push helps. Sometimes they can't, and you have to decide if the role, the company, the learning, or the stability is worth the trade-off. But you'll make that decision from a position of knowledge, not a position of guessing.
How GoodJobsOnly helps with this
Researching market rate takes time, but you don't have to do it in a vacuum. When you're looking at a job posting on GoodJobsOnly, we show you the salary the posting lists (if it's there) and line it up against what the wider market pays for that role and level. That's a core part of our Worth Score, our algorithmic opinion on whether a job is worth your time. We're not guaranteeing that every role fits the pattern or that market rates are static, but we give you the data so you can make your own call. About 4 in 10 live tech postings do not show a salary we can read, but when they do, we show you how it compares.