Seed
3% of jobs
- Hiring rate
- 66%
- Median roles
- 6.5
- Tracked
- 182 companies
- Hiring
- 120 companies
November 2026 Report
Hiring report
Current openings by role, funding stage, location, salary, and founder network.
Data coverage
Active openings from tracked company career pages, refreshed throughout the day. Updated 11/4/2026.
Open roles
46,541
Current openings
Hiring companies
689
Of 821 tracked
Salary coverage
57%
26,360 posted ranges
Top-five concentration
24%
Share of all live roles
01
Role mix
Role distribution
Physical build, test, production, and supply-chain roles account for 36% of openings, or 1.9× the share of software and AI roles.
Physical build, test, production, & supply chain
36%
Software, data, AI, & autonomy
19%
1.9×
ratio of physical-build roles to software and AI roles
“Physical build” combines electrical and firmware, mechanical systems, manufacturing and production, test and reliability, and supply chain. Product and program roles are excluded from both sides.
02
Funding stage
Hiring by funding stage
Series C+ companies account for 24× as many openings as seed companies. The median hiring Series C+ company lists 38 roles, compared with 6.5 at seed.
Series A
6% of jobs
- Hiring rate
- 84%
- Median roles
- 17
- Tracked
- 142 companies
- Hiring
- 119 companies
Series B
7% of jobs
- Hiring rate
- 93%
- Median roles
- 21.5
- Tracked
- 123 companies
- Hiring
- 114 companies
Series C+
62% of jobs
- Hiring rate
- 96%
- Median roles
- 38
- Tracked
- 317 companies
- Hiring
- 303 companies
Public
23% of jobs
- Hiring rate
- 88%
- Median roles
- 128.5
- Tracked
- 25 companies
- Hiring
- 22 companies
| Stage | Raw job share | Tracked | Hiring | Hiring rate | Median live roles |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seed | 3% | 182 | 120 | 66% | 6.5 |
| Series A | 6% | 142 | 119 | 84% | 17 |
| Series B | 7% | 123 | 114 | 93% | 21.5 |
| Series C+ | 62% | 317 | 303 | 96% | 38 |
| Public | 23% | 25 | 22 | 88% | 128.5 |
Hiring rate
Share of tracked active companies with at least one current opening.
Median openings
Median number of current roles among companies that are hiring.
03
Location
Location specialization
Each card shows the sector most concentrated in that market. A 2.0× reading means the local share is twice the overall BuildList share.
SF Bay Area
12,979 roles
AI Research
21% of local roles2.1×
Across 36 employers in this slice
Los Angeles
7,345 roles
Manufacturing
8% of local roles2.5×
Across 17 employers in this slice
NYC
4,584 roles
Fintech
15% of local roles3.1×
Across 18 employers in this slice
Seattle
3,921 roles
Aerospace
44% of local roles1.9×
Across 11 employers in this slice
Austin
2,448 roles
Energy & Climate
12% of local roles1.8×
Across 9 employers in this slice
United Kingdom
2,122 roles
Fintech
11% of local roles2.3×
Across 9 employers in this slice
Washington, D.C.
2,035 roles
Defense
42% of local roles3.0×
Across 41 employers in this slice
Denver
1,856 roles
Aerospace
69% of local roles3.0×
Across 27 employers in this slice
Remote availability by role
12%
of openings include a remote location. Availability varies by role.
Highest remote share
Business Dev & Customer Ops25%
Finance, Legal, & Compliance16%
Marketing & Design15%
Lowest remote share
Manufacturing & Production2%
Electrical & Firmware4%
Mechanical & Physical Systems4%
04
Salaries
Role-adjusted salary index
The raw median is $175k. The index compares each role family with its market-wide median and weights each represented role family equally.
Major location index
100 = role baselineNYC
8 roles · n=3,082
SF Bay Area
8 roles · n=7,934
Seattle
8 roles · n=1,496
Washington, D.C.
6 roles · n=1,073
Remote
5 roles · n=1,326
Boston
4 roles · n=349
Sector index
100 = role baselineAI Research
8 roles · n=1,819
Compute & Semiconductors
11 roles · n=2,847
AI App
7 roles · n=3,267
Robotics
6 roles · n=486
Transportation
5 roles · n=763
Defense
4 roles · n=1,664
100 is the median for the same roles across the full sample. Published cross-cuts require at least 30 salary-bearing openings; this report then requires at least four role families and 250 observations. The adjustment does not control for seniority, company, equity, or cost of living.
Explore salary ranges →05
Founder networks
Hiring across founder networks
Networks are ranked by the number of alumni-founded companies with current openings. Total job count breaks ties.
01133 alumni founders
85
companies hiring
6,867
roles across them
Largest current destinations
Meta
0255 alumni founders
40
companies hiring
5,911
roles across them
Largest current destinations
Apple
0333 alumni founders
27
companies hiring
722
roles across them
Largest current destinations
Amazon
0431 alumni founders
27
companies hiring
748
roles across them
Largest current destinations
McKinsey & Company
0526 alumni founders
23
companies hiring
1,302
roles across them
Largest current destinations
Microsoft
0625 alumni founders
22
companies hiring
1,375
roles across them
Largest current destinations
Destinations can appear under more than one alumni network, so job totals are not additive. The network dataset currently has qualifying prior-employment history for 838 of 1,953 founders.
Explore the founder graph →Browse current openings or download the report data.
Methodology
Definitions
Hiring inventory
Active openings come directly from company applicant-tracking systems. Generic talent-pipeline posts are removed. Counts are not deduplicated across companies because each row is a distinct employer opening.
Company universe
BuildList tracks a curated set of technology companies. Inactive companies stay in the historical directory but are excluded from the company-weighted stage denominator.
Places
A multi-location job contributes to each listed metro. Location specialization compares shares within one place, where the numerator and denominator use the same multi-location treatment.
Pay
Salary figures use the midpoint of disclosed base-pay ranges normalized to annual pay. Equity and bonus are excluded, and disclosure is shaped by pay-transparency laws.
Stages
Funding stage is the company’s latest canonical stage. Hiring rate is the share of tracked active companies at that stage with at least one current opening.
Networks
Founder links use structured prior-employment histories and durable founder identities. Network results represent the founders with available work-history data.
Scope and caveats
BuildList tracks a curated set of technology companies. The index covers current openings, not hires or headcount growth. The five largest employers account for 24% of all openings.
Coverage
The index does not represent the full technology job market.
Openings
Counts exclude applications, filled roles, layoffs, and net headcount changes.
Analysis
Opening-weighted, company-weighted, and role-adjusted measures are identified where used.