State of Tech Hiring — Q1 2026

2,673 listings analysed · 78 companies · January 01 – March 31, 2026

Executive Summary

Q1 2026 tech hiring data across 2,673 active listings from 78 companies shows DevOps & Infrastructure dominated quarter-over-quarter growth, with AWS up 76.0 percentage points, Kubernetes up 66.0pp and Terraform up 60.0pp. Demand surged beyond infrastructure roles: SQL rose 27.8pp in Data & Analytics, AWS added 14.8pp in Software Engineering and Stakeholder Management climbed 26.5pp in Product & Design. No major skill declines were recorded this quarter, and emerging skills including A/B Testing, Airflow, Data Pipeline and Data Visualization signal expanding demand in data-focused disciplines.

Key movements:

SQL surged +27.8pp in Data & Analytics
AWS surged +14.8pp in Software Engineering
Stakeholder Mgmt surged +26.5pp in Product & Design
AWS surged +76.0pp in DevOps & Infrastructure
Python surged +46.5pp in Security

By Category

Data & Analytics

299 active listings

Top 5 skills:

SQL — 27.8%
Stakeholder Mgmt — 23.4%
Python — 23.1%
AWS — 20.7%
Excel — 16.4%

Fastest rising: SQL (+27.8pp) Top hiring companies: lyft, databricks, airbnb

Software Engineering

1,420 active listings

Top 5 skills:

AWS — 14.8%
Stakeholder Mgmt — 14.4%
Scala — 13.6%
Excel — 11.9%
Python — 10.3%

Fastest rising: AWS (+14.8pp) Top hiring companies: databricks, coinbase, stripe

Product & Design

479 active listings

Top 5 skills:

Stakeholder Mgmt — 26.5%
Excel — 24.0%
AWS — 18.8%
Node.js — 16.5%
Scala — 12.9%

Fastest rising: Stakeholder Mgmt (+26.5pp) Top hiring companies: stripe, databricks, datadog

DevOps & Infrastructure

100 active listings

Top 5 skills:

AWS — 76.0%
Kubernetes — 66.0%
Terraform — 60.0%
Scala — 55.0%
CI/CD — 46.0%

Fastest rising: AWS (+76.0pp) Top hiring companies: fivetran, mongodb, Paymentology

Security

129 active listings

Top 5 skills:

Python — 46.5%
Excel — 44.2%
Go — 32.6%
GCP — 30.2%
Kubernetes — 28.7%

Fastest rising: Python (+46.5pp) Top hiring companies: cloudflare, coinbase, anthropic

AI & Machine Learning

246 active listings

Top 5 skills:

Llms / Genai — 31.3%
Machine Learning — 25.6%
Python — 24.8%
Stakeholder Mgmt — 23.2%
Excel — 18.3%

Fastest rising: Llms / Genai (+31.3pp) Top hiring companies: anthropic, datadog, scaleai

Skill Movements

Biggest Risers (Quarter-over-Quarter)

AWS +76.0pp — now 76.0% (DevOps & Infrastructure)
Kubernetes +66.0pp — now 66.0% (DevOps & Infrastructure)
Terraform +60.0pp — now 60.0% (DevOps & Infrastructure)
Scala +55.0pp — now 55.0% (DevOps & Infrastructure)
Python +46.5pp — now 46.5% (Security)
CI/CD +46.0pp — now 46.0% (DevOps & Infrastructure)
Excel +44.2pp — now 44.2% (Security)
GCP +43.0pp — now 43.0% (DevOps & Infrastructure)
Azure +43.0pp — now 43.0% (DevOps & Infrastructure)
Excel +40.0pp — now 40.0% (DevOps & Infrastructure)

Emerging Skills

A/b Testing — 10.4% in Data & Analytics (+10.4pp)
Airflow — 6.4% in Data & Analytics (+6.4pp)
AWS — 20.7% in Data & Analytics (+20.7pp)
Data Pipeline — 11.4% in Data & Analytics (+11.4pp)
Data Visualization — 5.4% in Data & Analytics (+5.4pp)

Salary Snapshot

Data & Analytics: $144,000 – $201,650 (median $166,500, 60 listings with salary)
Software Engineering: $175,000 – $238,000 (median $208,250, 175 listings with salary)
Product & Design: $167,500 – $250,000 (median $203,000, 84 listings with salary)
DevOps & Infrastructure: $185,132 – $208,708 (median $208,708, 11 listings with salary)
Security: $208,250 – $249,030 (median $216,000, 20 listings with salary)
AI & Machine Learning: $158,400 – $231,000 (median $208,708, 11 listings with salary)

Methodology

This report aggregates daily snapshots from Greenhouse, Lever and Ashby postings. We classify roles by category, extract skills from listing text and compute demand as percentage share of active listings.

Published March 18, 2026. Data refreshed daily.