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Tech Job Titles: Same Job, Different Price
We read 3,060 job postings from 2026 for ten tech titles in the US and Canada. Titles that ask for almost the same skills can still sit 35% to 60% apart in posted base salary.
Ten tech titles, from Software Engineer and Forward Deployed Engineer to Business Analyst, measured two ways: the skills their 2026 job postings ask for, and the base salary those postings disclose, set against base and total compensation reported on levels.fyi. Analytics Engineer and Data Analyst, or ML and MLOps Engineer, share most of their skills yet differ by 35% to 60% in posted base salary. Forward Deployed Engineer turns out to be its own job, closest to AI Engineer. Includes a pay explorer that compares posted base with levels.fyi base and TC by country, level and title.
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