Software Engineering Skills in Demand

Software engineers design, build and run the systems behind products and services. Postings usually ask for one or two main programming languages plus experience with the cloud platforms and delivery tooling a team already uses.

We analyzed 62 U.S. job descriptions from 20 employers for Software Engineering roles. The most requested skills were Java (65%), Python (50%) and CI/CD (48%).

1,428open U.S. roles tracked
3 yearstypical experience asked for

Languages

  • Java65%
  • Python50%
  • SQL35%
  • TypeScript23%
  • JavaScript21%
  • Go19%
  • C#19%
  • Kotlin16%

Cloud & infrastructure

  • CI/CD48%
  • AWS44%
  • Kubernetes42%
  • Distributed systems40%
  • Microservices32%
  • Azure31%
  • Docker27%
  • Google Cloud27%
  • Terraform19%
  • Linux18%

Product & design

  • Agile42%
  • Prototyping8%

Data

  • Kafka21%
  • Data modeling11%

Security

  • Incident response16%

AI & machine learning

  • LLMs15%

Finance & legal

  • Regulatory compliance13%

Updated November 7, 2026, using job descriptions collected since September 26, 2026. Shares show how many of the sampled descriptions mention a skill, so a low share can still be a firm requirement in the roles that list it. We sample a limited number of descriptions per employer so that no single company dominates, and we only report figures backed by several employers. Advertised pay comes from a different group of roles than H1B filings, so the two are not directly comparable.

All job families