Top Companies Hiring for Software Jobs in San Francisco (Oct 2026)
You are job hunting for software work in San Francisco and you want to know which employers are actually posting, not which ones the news keeps naming. Here is the picture from JobRise's live jobs feed on 14 October 2026: 407 open Software listings in San Francisco, United States. Of those, 176 were posted in the last 30 days and 33 in the last 7 days. Treat every number here as a dated snapshot of open listings, not as a market survey or a hiring forecast.
The companies with the most open software listings#
These are the ten employers with the largest counts in the slice, names exactly as they appear on the listings. Some of these may be recruiters or staffing firms posting on behalf of clients, so read each posting carefully before you assume who signs your paycheck.
- Anthropic: 160
- Scaleai: 24
- Togetherai: 24
- Langchain: 20
- Chime: 18
- Brex: 18
- Okta: 17
- Figma: 16
- Stripe: 11
- Fuku: 9
One employer dominates. Anthropic's 160 listings are roughly two of every five in the slice, which means your San Francisco software search is largely an Anthropic search whether you want it to be or not. If you are not a fit for them, you are competing for the remaining listings with everyone who is.
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What the job titles tell you#
Titles are the only thing I am drawing conclusions from. Sample open roles in the slice include "Engineering Manager, Claude Platform" and "Staff+ Software Engineer, Platform Acceleration" at Anthropic, "Senior Software Engineer, Identity" at Scaleai, "Full Stack Engineer, Builder Experience" at Stripe, and "Site Reliability Engineer SRE - Internationalisation" at Fuku. You also see "Senior Software Engineer, Payments Transaction Risk" at Airbnb, a company outside the top ten.
Two things stand out. Platform, infrastructure, and identity work shows up repeatedly, so backend and systems skills are in demand. And not every listing is software-shaped: "Mobile Car Detailer" at exclusive mobile details appears in the slice too, which is a reminder to read job boards critically.
New grads have it hard here. Only 5 of 407 listings look entry-level by title, such as "Software Engineer - New Grad" and "Software Engineer, Public Sector - New Grad" at Scaleai, "Software Engineer, New Grad" at Stripe, and "Software Engineer, New Grad (2027)" at Togetherai. If you are early career, expect to apply widely and to lean on internships, projects, and referrals more than on job-board luck.
How San Francisco compares with the country#
San Francisco holds 407 of the 1,827 Software listings open across the United States, so roughly one in five software listings on JobRise is in this one city. Across all categories, San Francisco has 1,314 open listings, which means software is about a third of the city's postings. For country-level numbers and how they move over time, check the hiring report for the United States.
The city is a deep market, but it is a concentrated one. That concentration works for you if your skills match the top employers. It works against you if they do not, because the same ten names absorb most of the attention and most of the applicants.
How to target each type of employer#
The top ten are not one kind of company, and your approach should differ.
AI labs and AI infrastructure companies, such as Anthropic, Scaleai, Togetherai, and Langchain, hire for depth. Read the posting for the exact stack and mirror its language in your resume. If the role names inference infrastructure, distributed systems, or platform acceleration, put your closest project first, not your most recent job.
Fintech and product companies, such as Chime, Brex, and Stripe, care about reliability and domain judgment. Payments, risk, and identity appear in the titles for a reason. Lead with a bullet that shows you shipped something that moved money, blocked fraud, or handled auth correctly.
Developer-facing and design-tool companies, such as Figma and Okta, value people who understand their users. If you have written docs, SDKs, or internal tools that other engineers actually used, say so with numbers where you can.
Recruiters and staffing firms need a different pitch entirely. They are matching you to a client, so give them a clean, keyword-rich resume and be explicit about your constraints: location, visa status, salary floor, start date. Vague candidates get skipped.
Referral and outreach scripts#
Cold outreach works when it is short, specific, and easy to answer. Do not write "I am very interested in your company." Write something a busy engineer can respond to in thirty seconds.
Referral request to someone you know:
"Hi Priya, I saw the Staff+ Software Engineer, Platform Acceleration role on Anthropic's careers page and it lines up with the platform work I did at Riveline, where I cut our build times by 40 percent. Would you be willing to refer me internally? I have attached my resume and can send a two-bullet summary if that helps your referral form. Either way, thanks."
Cold message to a hiring manager or engineer:
"Hi Jordan, I read your team's post on payments risk modeling and it matched work I did on transaction scoring at Northbeam, where we reduced false declines by 12 percent. I applied to the Senior Software Engineer, Payments Transaction Risk role and wanted to introduce myself directly. Happy to share a short write-up of the approach if that is useful."
Follow up once, five to seven days later, then stop. Two messages is a professional nudge. Five is a reason to be filtered.
A 7-step plan for your search#
- Pull the current Software listings for San Francisco and sort by recency. Start from the 407-listing snapshot but refresh it, because counts move daily.
- Rank your targets using the top-ten list above. Pick three companies where your skills are a real match and three where they are a stretch.
- Rewrite your top resume bullet for each target. Mirror the exact nouns from the posting: "platform acceleration," "identity," "payments transaction risk."
- Find one or two people at each target on LinkedIn or your alumni network and send the referral script. Aim for five outreach messages a week, not fifty.
- Track everything in a simple sheet: company, role, date applied, contact, last follow-up. If you cannot see your pipeline, you will double-apply and forget to follow up.
- Use the company insights tool to check headcount, funding, and recent hiring signals before each interview, so your questions sound informed instead of generic.
- Apply to the non-obvious listings too. Contract roles, staffing firms, and companies outside the top ten get fewer applicants and often move faster.
What the salary data actually says#
Only 6 of the 407 listings show pay, so treat these as individual data points, not a market rate. As posted: "Director of Engineering, Payments" at Patreon, $340K to $425K with equity; "Staff Software Engineer, Backend Platform" at Patreon, $257.5K to $386K with equity; "Software Engineer, Forward Deployed" at Ramp, $189K to $330K with equity; "IT Site Specialist" at Ramp, $145,760 to $200,420; "Lead Member of Technical Staff, Inference Infrastructure" at Cohere, $235K to $325K with equity; and "Staff Software Engineer, Inference Infrastructure" at Cohere, $190K to $325K with equity.
These ranges vary by level, by negotiation, and by when you read them. Verify current numbers on the employer's official posting or offer letter before you plan around them.
Free tools#
FAQ#
How current are these numbers?
They are a snapshot of JobRise's live jobs feed taken on 14 October 2026, counting open listings rather than hires or market size. Counts change daily, so re-check the listings before you make decisions.
Should I apply to Anthropic for almost every role?
Apply where your skills match the posting, not just where the count is highest. A focused application to a role that fits your background beats ten generic ones.
Are the top-ten companies all direct employers?
Not necessarily. The data notes that some names on listings are recruiters or staffing firms. Read the posting to see who the employer of record is before you invest time in a tailored application.
Where can I see more software roles in this city?
The San Francisco software jobs hub on JobRise lists the current openings and lets you filter by role, seniority, and date posted. Start there and refresh it weekly.
What if I am a new grad?
Only 5 of 407 listings look entry-level by title, so widen your search beyond job boards. Target referrals, apply to the new-grad postings you do see at Scaleai, Stripe, and Togetherai, and keep building projects that map to the platform and infrastructure work in these listings.
Send this to whoever has the interview this week.