What a staff engineer is actually worth in 2026

The honest answer: more than the leveling guides on Levels.fyi will tell you, and less than your group chat thinks.

Across bids on TalentBid in Q2 2026, the median staff-level base for builders with shipped AI systems sits at $290k in the US, $215k EUR-equivalent in the EU, and $180k in the UK. Equity packages cluster around 0.10–0.35% at seed/Series A, 0.04–0.12% at Series B+.

What moves the number isn't years of experience. It's what shows up on your profile: a deployed model people use, an infra rebuild that cut spend, an agent that ships work without a human in the loop. Builders with a verified shipped project receive 3.4× more bids than those without.

Want to know what *you'd* get bid? Claim your profile and watch the offers come in.