- Home >
- Startup hiring data >
- SQL Developer Salary and Equity Compensation in Startups 2026
SQL Developer Salary and Equity in 2026
How much can a SQL developer expect to make at US-based startups? The average estimated salary for SQL developers is 108k per year, with a range from 60k to 185k. The salary range for SQL developers varies depending on factors such as location, industry, experience, and startup stage.
107.7k
Average Salary
3 years
Average years of experience
Salary
The average salary for a SQL developer is$107,667, which is 4.6% lower than the average startup salary of$112,833. SQL developer salaries are based on exclusive Wellfound data. All data is updated on a weekly basis. Factors that may influence salary include: location, years of experience, title, size of company, and industry.
Top of market
$176,958/yr
Range $170k - $185k
Average
$107,667/yr
Range $95k - $125k
Below Average
$71,333/yr
Range $60k - $85k
Top Locations
The highest average salary a SQL developer can get in Austin, that is $210,000. This pay is 95.0% higher than the average SQL salary in startups, which is $107,667. Salaries will vary based on your location. The top-paying markets in the US, on average, are currently: Austin (avg $210,000 per year), San Francisco Bay Area (avg $170,000 per year), Cambridge (avg $145,000 per year). Remote jobs often pay based on the location you reside in.
Austin
$210k
Cambridge
$145k
Minneapolis
$132k
Seattle
$120k
Vancouver
$115k
Santa Monica
View SalariesDenver
View SalariesBoston
View SalariesSan Diego
View SalariesToronto
View SalariesChicago
View SalariesLos Angeles
View SalariesNew York
View SalariesIndustries
The highest average salary a SQL developer can get in Design, that is $212,500. This pay is 8.5% higher than the average SQL salary, which is $195,800. The highest-paying industries in 2023 are: Design (avg $212,500 per year), Staffing Firms (avg $210,000 per year), Application Performance Monitoring (avg $206,000 per year).
Tech Stack
Top Tech Stacks
The top-paying developer skills of 2026 are:
1. Celery
$202k
2. Clojure
$195k
3. OpenCV
$192k
4. Clojurescript
$187.5k
5. Symfony
$175k
6. Scipy
$175k
7. Heroku
$165k
8. Dart
$160k
9. Amazon ECS
$155k
10. DynamoDB
$150k
Years of experience
Below Average
Average
Top of Market
The highest average salary a SQL developer can get with 10+ years of experience, that is $102,000. This pay is 9.6% lower than the average salary in startups, which is $112,833. The salary range varies with years of experience and depends on other factors such as skill set, size of company, and industry.
Popular roles
Software EngineerMobile DeveloperAndroid DeveloperiOS DeveloperFrontend EngineerBackend EngineerFull-Stack EngineerSoftware ArchitectMachine Learning EngineerEmbedded EngineerData EngineerDevOpsEngineering ManagerQA EngineerData ScientistDesignerUI/UX DesignerUser ResearcherVisual DesignerCreative DirectorGraphic Designer Product DesignerProduct ManagerOperationsFinance/AccountingH.R.Office ManagerRecruiterCustomer ServiceOperations ManagerSalesBusiness DevelopmentSales Development RepresentativeAccount ExecutiveBD ManagerAccount ManagerSales ManagerCustomer Success ManagerMarketingGrowth HackerMarketing ManagerContent CreatorCopywriterSocial Media ManagerManagementCEOCFOCMOCOOCTOOther EngineeringHardware EngineerMechanical EngineerSystems EngineerOtherBusiness AnalystProject ManagerAttorneyData AnalystInvestorLimited PartnerStrategic InvestorInstitutional InvestorVenture DebtVCSeed FundIndividual InvestorAngelFounder
Popular skills
PythonPHPC++JavaJavascriptjQueryHaskellMachine LearningBudgetingSQLC#DjangoMySQLAndroidMongoDBNode.jsRubyMAGENTORedisRPostgreSQLCMatlabCassandraProspectingPuppetUnity3DClojureNginxHibernateScalaAdobe PhotoshopSymfonySQLAlchemyRabbitmqWebGLHerokuSpringAmazon S3CelerySASNeo4JOpenCVAmazon SQSSeleniumLuaAdobe InDesignGradleFlaskUnrealD3.jsNumpyScipyXcodeAutocadDartDynamoDBRuby on RailsAzureBootstrapSplunkWebsocketsPandasKafkaExpress.jsLaravelWebRTCTypeScriptAnsysUnitySketchSparkObjective-Cscikit-learnElixirDeep LearningDockerFirebaseRustClojurescriptXamarinKotlinAmazon KinesisSwiftElasticSearchSolidityAWSInvisionPostmanKubernetesReact NativeGraphQLPysparkKerasPrometheusElectronGoWebAssemblyAirflowAmazon ECSGCPWeb3.JsPyTorchNuxt.JsopenAIFlutterNest.JsSwiftUISvelte
Tech Hubs for SQL
Industries for SQL
Web DesignBlockchain / CryptocurrencyFin TechBig DataRetailFood and BeveragesMarketplacesSmall and Medium BusinessesReal EstateDigital MarketingHealth and WellnessAdvertisingMobile ApplicationArtificial IntelligenceSales and MarketingFinancial ServicesDigital MediaWeb DevelopmentSoftwareEducationTechnologySocial MediaB2BSaaSE-CommerceClean TechnologyHealthcareEnterprise SoftwareMobile