Startup Hiring Trends

Which roles and countries are gaining or losing share of startup hiring. For hiring volume, salaries, and remote work, see the startup hiring statistics.

Postings year over year: -9.4%; At 2,637 established startups
Fastest-gaining role: Electrical Engineer; Share +98.1% in 12 months
Largest role: Software Engineer; 5.3% of postings

Largest startup roles

Software Engineer is the largest startup role, with 5.3% of job postings in the last 12 months.

Share of startup job postings, 5 largest roles

Per quarter since Q1 2017.

Show the data

Quarter	Software Engineer	Account Executive	Customer Service	Product Manager	Account Manager
Q1 2017	4.6%	2.5%	3.6%	2.2%	2.1%
Q2 2017	4.9%	2.2%	3.6%	2.2%	2.1%
Q3 2017	5.1%	2.3%	3.5%	2.6%	1.9%
Q4 2017	5.3%	2.4%	3.7%	2.6%	1.9%
Q1 2018	4.9%	2.8%	3.3%	2.6%	2.3%
Q2 2018	5.0%	2.0%	3.4%	2.6%	1.9%
Q3 2018	5.4%	1.9%	3.8%	2.5%	1.9%
Q4 2018	5.0%	2.5%	3.9%	2.7%	2.2%
Q1 2019	4.9%	3.0%	4.0%	2.8%	2.3%
Q2 2019	5.0%	2.6%	3.9%	2.6%	2.1%
Q3 2019	5.3%	2.7%	4.1%	2.5%	2.2%
Q4 2019	5.2%	3.1%	3.7%	2.4%	1.8%
Q1 2020	5.6%	3.0%	3.7%	2.4%	2.3%
Q2 2020	7.4%	2.0%	3.9%	2.8%	1.3%
Q3 2020	7.3%	2.0%	3.4%	2.8%	1.4%
Q4 2020	6.2%	2.6%	3.4%	3.0%	1.6%
Q1 2021	6.1%	2.5%	3.4%	3.0%	1.5%
Q2 2021	5.8%	2.1%	3.5%	2.9%	1.4%
Q3 2021	6.0%	2.1%	3.4%	2.8%	1.4%
Q4 2021	5.7%	2.4%	3.3%	2.9%	1.5%
Q1 2022	5.7%	2.6%	2.9%	2.8%	1.5%
Q2 2022	5.8%	2.3%	3.1%	2.8%	1.5%
Q3 2022	5.9%	2.3%	3.3%	2.5%	1.4%
Q4 2022	5.7%	2.3%	3.2%	2.3%	1.4%
Q1 2023	5.0%	2.4%	3.3%	2.1%	1.6%
Q2 2023	4.8%	2.1%	3.5%	2.2%	1.5%
Q3 2023	4.7%	2.1%	3.4%	2.2%	1.6%
Q4 2023	4.8%	2.4%	3.2%	2.0%	1.7%
Q1 2024	4.4%	2.8%	3.3%	2.0%	1.7%
Q2 2024	5.5%	3.0%	3.3%	2.4%	1.9%
Q3 2024	5.8%	2.8%	3.5%	2.3%	1.9%
Q4 2024	5.4%	3.2%	3.3%	2.4%	2.0%
Q1 2025	5.6%	3.1%	3.4%	2.3%	2.0%
Q2 2025	5.5%	2.5%	3.5%	2.3%	1.9%
Q3 2025	5.9%	2.7%	3.5%	2.4%	1.8%
Q4 2025	6.2%	3.3%	3.0%	2.6%	2.0%
Q1 2026	6.2%	3.4%	2.8%	2.6%	2.0%
Q2 2026	5.3%	2.9%	2.8%	2.5%	2.0%
Q3 2026	4.8%	2.6%	3.0%	2.3%	1.9%

Largest roles

Role	Share, prior 12 months	Share, last 12 months	Change
Software Engineer	5.7%	5.3%	-7.0%
Account Executive	2.9%	3.0%	+3.2%
Customer Service	3.4%	2.9%	-14.9%
Product Manager	2.4%	2.5%	+3.5%
Account Manager	1.9%	2.0%	+5.5%
Senior Software Engineer	1.9%	1.8%	-8.3%
Finance/Accounting	1.4%	1.5%	+5.5%
H.R.	1.6%	1.5%	-4.3%
Business Development	1.5%	1.4%	-7.2%
Head of Human Resources	1.1%	1.3%	+18.8%
Marketing Manager	1.3%	1.2%	-5.9%
Project Manager	1.1%	1.0%	-1.9%
Quality Assurance (QA)	1.1%	0.89%	-15.5%
Customer Success Manager	0.86%	0.86%	-0.1%
Program Manager	0.75%	0.85%	+13.3%
Sales Manager	0.82%	0.84%	+1.8%
Operations Manager	0.73%	0.77%	+6.1%
Senior Product Manager	0.78%	0.75%	-3.3%
Engineering Manager	0.79%	0.75%	-5.6%
Sales Development Representative (SDR)	0.80%	0.70%	-12.4%

Roles gaining and losing share

Electrical Engineer gained the most ground: its share of startup postings went from 0.11% to 0.22% in the last 12 months.

Frontend Engineer lost the most, from 0.47% to 0.27%.

Gaining share

Role	Share, prior 12 months	Share, last 12 months	Change
Electrical Engineer	0.11%	0.22%	+98.1%
Design Engineer	0.17%	0.34%	+97.0%
AI Engineer	0.22%	0.43%	+96.5%
Product Engineer	0.12%	0.24%	+95.8%
Mechanical Engineer	0.16%	0.31%	+88.7%
Manufacturing Engineer	0.13%	0.21%	+65.6%
Platform Engineer	0.24%	0.38%	+56.5%
Quality Engineer	0.17%	0.26%	+54.1%
Service Technician	0.14%	0.21%	+53.2%
Territory Manager	0.14%	0.22%	+52.6%

Losing share

Role	Share, prior 12 months	Share, last 12 months	Change
Frontend Engineer	0.47%	0.27%	-43.2%
Maintenance Technician	0.26%	0.16%	-38.0%
UX Designer	0.16%	0.10%	-37.4%
Writer	0.47%	0.31%	-33.0%
Graphic Designer	0.18%	0.13%	-27.5%
Sales Consultant	0.14%	0.10%	-25.6%
Inside Sales Representative	0.13%	0.10%	-23.6%
Data Analyst	0.60%	0.46%	-22.9%
Senior Product Designer	0.31%	0.24%	-22.7%
Quality Assurance (QA) Engineer	0.41%	0.32%	-22.3%

Only roles with at least 0.1% of postings in both periods are ranked.

Where startups are hiring

The United States accounted for 48.1% of startup job postings in the last 12 months, compared with 44.1% in the 12 months before.

Countries by share of postings

Country	Share, prior 12 months	Share, last 12 months	Change
United States	44.1%	48.1%	+9.2%
United Kingdom	6.5%	6.3%	-3.2%
India	5.6%	5.2%	-8.1%
Germany	4.1%	4.8%	+19.5%
Canada	4.7%	4.3%	-8.1%
France	2.1%	1.9%	-5.8%
Brazil	2.0%	1.7%	-14.5%
Australia	1.8%	1.5%	-13.9%
Spain	1.4%	1.4%	-1.8%
Netherlands	0.98%	1.3%	+27.3%
Poland	1.3%	1.2%	-13.2%
Mexico	1.0%	1.1%	+8.5%
Singapore	0.81%	0.98%	+20.9%
Philippines	1.2%	0.96%	-17.8%
Japan	0.68%	0.72%	+6.2%
Ireland	0.55%	0.61%	+9.6%
Israel	0.54%	0.59%	+8.1%
Malaysia	0.53%	0.59%	+11.3%
Portugal	0.64%	0.58%	-9.7%
China	0.37%	0.52%	+43.3%

Methodology

Trends come from job postings on startup.jobs, sourced from startups' career pages and jobs posted directly by employers. Employers our vetting rejected or couldn't confirm as startups are left out.
We keep adding startups, so posting counts grow even when hiring doesn't. Every trend is therefore a share of all startup postings in the same period, which stays comparable as coverage grows.
Broad catch-all titles such as Manager or Specialist are left out of role rankings.
Quarterly shares start in 2017 and cover complete quarters. Changes compare the last 12 full months with the 12 before.

You are welcome to cite these figures with a link: Source: Startup Jobs, startup.jobs/trends

For salaries, remote work, and AI hiring, see the startup hiring statistics.