Side by side

Backend Engineer vs Frontend Engineer

Backend Engineer pays more: a median of $138,000 against $131,500. There is 5.2× more demand for Frontend Engineer. Listings for Frontend Engineer move faster — median age 31 days against 78.

Comparison

Side by side

MeasureBackend EngineerFrontend EngineerGap
Open postings8,36143,487-35,126
Posted this week6461,148
Median salary$138,000$131,500+$6.5k
25th percentile$109k$104k
75th percentile$171k$163k
Salary disclosed6.4%4.2%
Remote share3.5%8.1%-4.6pp
Median age of posting78d31d
Open over 60 days31.2%36.2%
Visa sponsorship20.9%22.0%
Pay

Pay distribution

Backend Engineer

$62k$239k

Frontend Engineer

$59k$227k
Freshness

How old the listings are

Backend Engineer

just posted78d median90d+

Frontend Engineer

just posted31d median90d+
Demand

What each side asks for

Backend Engineer — technologies

Swift
72.0%
Terraform
65.8%
GCP
59.6%
Kotlin
53.4%
HubSpot
47.2%
Go
41.0%
Tableau
34.8%

Frontend Engineer — technologies

Docker
72.0%
TypeScript
65.8%
AWS
59.6%
Go
53.4%
Tableau
47.2%
PostgreSQL
41.0%
Salesforce
34.8%

Backend Engineer — employers

Tidewater Insurance
9.4%
Lakeshore Hospitality
8.7%
Fairmount Legal
8.0%
Rivergate Media
7.2%
Quarry Analytics
6.5%
Solstice Biotech
5.8%
Umbra Security
5.1%

Frontend Engineer — employers

Umbra Security
9.4%
Brightline Retail
8.7%
Meridian Software
8.0%
Solstice Biotech
7.2%
Rivergate Media
6.5%
Northwind Systems
5.8%
Halcyon Energy
5.1%

Track this slice

A weekly note when openings, pay or freshness move for Backend Engineer vs Frontend Engineer.

More comparisons

Other Engineering comparisons

Both sides are counted the same way on the same day, so the gap is comparable even where the absolute numbers move. Salary figures use only postings that publish a range — the disclosure rate is in the table because a median over 20% of a cohort is a weaker number than one over 70%.