Seed
3% of jobs
- Hiring rate
- 59%
- Median roles
- 6
- Tracked
- 185 companies
- Hiring
- 109 companies
Open roles
38,856
Current openings
Hiring companies
619
Of 784 tracked
Salary coverage
58%
22,675 posted ranges
Top-five concentration
23%
Share of all live roles
01
Role mix
Role distribution
Physical build, test, production, and supply-chain roles account for 37% of openings, or 1.8× the share of software and AI roles.
Physical build, test, production, & supply chain
37%
Software, data, AI, & autonomy
20%
1.8×
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 25× as many openings as seed companies. The median hiring Series C+ company lists 38 roles, compared with 6 at seed.
Series A
5% of jobs
- Hiring rate
- 79%
- Median roles
- 14
- Tracked
- 130 companies
- Hiring
- 103 companies
Series B
7% of jobs
- Hiring rate
- 91%
- Median roles
- 21
- Tracked
- 118 companies
- Hiring
- 107 companies
Series C+
64% of jobs
- Hiring rate
- 93%
- Median roles
- 38
- Tracked
- 291 companies
- Hiring
- 271 companies
Public
20% of jobs
- Hiring rate
- 88%
- Median roles
- 137
- Tracked
- 25 companies
- Hiring
- 22 companies
| Stage | Raw job share | Tracked | Hiring | Hiring rate | Median live roles |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seed | 3% | 185 | 109 | 59% | 6 |
| Series A | 5% | 130 | 103 | 79% | 14 |
| Series B | 7% | 118 | 107 | 91% | 21 |
| Series C+ | 64% | 291 | 271 | 93% | 38 |
| Public | 20% | 25 | 22 | 88% | 137 |
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
10,258 roles
AI Research
16% of local roles2.2×
Across 25 employers in this slice
Los Angeles
6,200 roles
Manufacturing
8% of local roles2.3×
Across 16 employers in this slice
NYC
3,628 roles
Fintech
17% of local roles3.5×
Across 13 employers in this slice
Seattle
2,810 roles
Aerospace
48% of local roles2.0×
Across 12 employers in this slice
Austin
2,202 roles
Energy & Climate
13% of local roles1.7×
Across 8 employers in this slice
United Kingdom
1,699 roles
Fintech
12% of local roles2.4×
Across 7 employers in this slice
Denver
1,409 roles
Aerospace
64% of local roles2.7×
Across 26 employers in this slice
Washington, D.C.
1,269 roles
Defense
42% of local roles3.1×
Across 40 employers in this slice
Remote availability by role
11%
of openings include a remote location. Availability varies by role.
Highest remote share
Business Dev & Customer Ops23%
Marketing & Design21%
Infrastructure, IT, & Security17%
Lowest remote share
Manufacturing & Production1%
Mechanical & Physical Systems3%
Test, Quality, & Reliability3%
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 baselineSF Bay Area
8 roles · n=6,725
NYC
8 roles · n=2,661
Austin
5 roles · n=342
Seattle
6 roles · n=1,231
Remote
6 roles · n=2,085
Washington, D.C.
6 roles · n=822
Boston
4 roles · n=296
Sector index
100 = role baselineAI Research
8 roles · n=1,638
Compute & Semiconductors
11 roles · n=2,157
AI App
7 roles · n=2,962
Transportation
5 roles · n=812
Robotics
4 roles · n=334
Defense
4 roles · n=1,292
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.
01126 alumni founders
76
companies hiring
6,198
roles across them
Largest current destinations
SpaceX
02107 alumni founders
68
companies hiring
2,755
roles across them
Largest current destinations
Meta
0351 alumni founders
34
companies hiring
5,350
roles across them
Largest current destinations
Tesla
0448 alumni founders
33
companies hiring
1,259
roles across them
Largest current destinations
Palantir
0542 alumni founders
28
companies hiring
3,299
roles across them
Largest current destinations
Amazon
0627 alumni founders
24
companies hiring
608
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 854 of 1,846 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 frontier-tech 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 USD. 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 frontier-tech companies. The index covers current openings, not hires or headcount growth. The five largest employers account for 23% of all openings.
Coverage
The index does not represent the full frontier-tech 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.