How distributed systems pay has moved month over month, computed from disclosed salaries on company career pages. Each month's figures are the salaries of roles first observed by Joblaze that month — no surveys, no recruiter estimates.
Percentile bands over the lower bound of each disclosed range. Only complete months are shown; months with fewer than 25 disclosed salaries are omitted, and the sample size behind each month is shown so you can weigh thinner months yourself.
| Month | 25th pct | Median | 75th pct | Salaries |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 2026 | $150k | $185.3k | $214.5k | 104 |
| Aug 2026 | $99.8k | $155.4k | $217.0k | 36 |
| Jul 2026 | $160k | $190k | $229k | 29 |
| Jun 2026 | $90.0k | $134.5k | $195k | 50 |
| May 2026 | $135k | $176k | $217.3k | 32 |
From May 2026 to Sep 2026, the median for distributed systems moved from $176k (32 salaries) to $185.3k (104 salaries).
Each month groups distributed systems roles by the month they were first seen on a company career page. Only roles with a disclosed annual salary are included; non-USD salaries are converted to USD at current rates and hourly rates are excluded, to keep medians comparable. Percentiles are calculated over the lower bound of each disclosed range, which makes the medians conservative.
Holding the skill fixed removes skill-mix bias — but not the other kinds. The series still moves with which employers, locations and seniority levels happen to post distributed systems roles in a given month, and with exchange rates for non-USD salaries. It describes postings Joblaze observed, not the whole market. The first month of coverage (when our backlog was first scanned) and the current in-progress month are excluded, and months with too few disclosed salaries are dropped rather than shown as unreliable points.
Citing this trend? Link to this page — the series extends as new jobs are scanned.
Download the aggregate data (CSV)
Reproducible: percentiles are PostgreSQL percentile_cont over advertised annual minimums converted to USD; see Methodology.