How many entry-level tech jobs are there?
On November 9, 2026, 1,083 of the 78,247 open jobs at the 816 companies Hiring Tempo tracks had an entry-level title, or about 1 in every 72. Internships add another 2,552. Put together, fewer than 1 in 20 open jobs at these companies is meant for someone at the very start of their career.
That's a small slice, and it lines up with what recent graduates are going through. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York puts the unemployment rate for college graduates aged 22 to 27 at 5.2% in the third quarter of 2026. That was its lowest level in more than a year, but it's still above the 4.1% rate for all workers in October, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The same New York Fed page says 42.5% of recent graduates are underemployed, which means they work in a job that doesn't usually need a degree.
Here's how we count. A job is entry level when its title says junior, entry level, new grad, early career, apprentice or trainee, or when the title starts with "Associate," and nothing in it says senior, lead, manager or the like. We left out titles like "Associate Manager" and "Associate General Counsel," because those jobs often ask for years of experience. The filter on our entry-level board is a little wider and shows 1,270 jobs today.
Titles are a rough guide, though. Plenty of companies hire new graduates into jobs called plain "Software Engineer" or "Software Engineer I," and our count misses those. Another 368 open jobs have an "I" or "1" in the title, like "Field Service Technician I," which usually marks the first rung of a job ladder. So the real number of jobs a new graduate could get is higher than 1,083, but probably not by several times.
Which companies are hiring for entry-level jobs?
Chip companies lead. Analog Devices, GlobalFoundries, Applied Materials and NVIDIA together have 276 entry-level jobs, about a quarter of the total. Most are titles like "Associate Engineer" in manufacturing, testing and chip design, along with new-grad jobs that start in 2027.
| Company | Entry-level jobs | All open jobs | Share entry level |
|---|---|---|---|
| Analog Devices | 85 | 805 | 10.6% |
| GlobalFoundries | 71 | 849 | 8.4% |
| Applied Materials | 62 | 2,000+ | n/a |
| NVIDIA | 58 | 2,000+ | n/a |
| SpaceX | 52 | 2,906 | 1.8% |
| Veeva Systems | 50 | 875 | 5.7% |
| Palantir | 38 | 305 | 12.5% |
| Shield AI | 31 | 664 | 4.7% |
| CoStar Group | 31 | 359 | 8.6% |
| Anduril | 29 | 2,563 | 1.1% |
Source: Hiring Tempo, open jobs on company career pages, November 9, 2026. We show up to 2,000 jobs for the largest companies, so their share isn't shown.
Palantir has the highest share among companies with at least 100 openings, at 12.5%. Every one of its 38 entry-level jobs says "New Grad" in the title, and most are software and forward deployed engineer jobs, with a few product designer and deployment strategist jobs mixed in. Forward deployed engineers work inside a customer's business and build what the customer needs, and our article on that job shows it's one of the few fast-growing tech jobs that still hires straight out of school.
Veeva's 50 are mostly consulting jobs with "Entry-Level" written right in the title, such as Associate Technical Consultant. CoStar's include associate photographers, who take pictures of buildings for its real estate listings. So an entry-level tech job doesn't have to mean writing code.
Which teams hire the most beginners?
Engineering has the most entry-level jobs by far, with 466, and design has the highest share. Product management is close to closed for beginners. Only 2 of 2,018 open product jobs have an entry-level title.
| Team | Open jobs | Entry-level jobs | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design | 4,618 | 107 | 2.3% |
| Engineering | 25,391 | 466 | 1.8% |
| Finance and legal | 2,893 | 43 | 1.5% |
| Operations | 4,154 | 61 | 1.5% |
| People and recruiting | 1,055 | 13 | 1.2% |
| Data and analytics | 1,786 | 16 | 0.9% |
| Customer success | 2,655 | 21 | 0.8% |
| Sales and go-to-market | 9,898 | 54 | 0.5% |
| Marketing | 2,761 | 13 | 0.5% |
| Product | 2,018 | 2 | 0.1% |
Source: Hiring Tempo, November 9, 2026. Jobs we couldn't sort into a team are left out.
The design number needs a note. About half of those 107 jobs are chip and circuit design jobs at NVIDIA, GlobalFoundries and Analog Devices, and the rest are mostly new-grad product designer jobs at software companies.
Sales is the surprise. Sales is often called the easiest way into a tech company, but titles there rarely say entry level. Many starter sales jobs are called sales development representative (SDR) or business development representative (BDR), and those titles don't count here. There are 451 of them open, which is more than eight times the 54 sales jobs that carry an entry-level title, so search for those names directly if sales is where you want to start.
Are there entry-level software engineer jobs?
Yes, but not many. 166 of the entry-level jobs are software, developer or machine learning jobs. Palantir has 24 of them, SpaceX 14, Stripe 11 and Shield AI 10. Many say "New Grad" or "2027" in the title, because big companies hire the next year's graduates in the fall. If you graduate in spring 2027, these are the jobs to apply to now.
Remote work is rare at this level. Only 4.5% of entry-level jobs are remote, compared with 12.8% of all the jobs we track, as our remote jobs article found. If you want a remote first job, expect to look a lot harder for it.
About 55% of the jobs are in the United States. New York City has the most with 97, then Santa Clara with 71, San Francisco with 55 and Seattle with 39.
What do entry-level tech jobs pay?
Only 64 of the US entry-level jobs post a yearly pay range, so treat this as a small sample. The typical one offers $125,000 at the middle of its range, compared with $204,000 for all 8,123 US jobs at these companies that post a range.
For engineering, the typical entry-level midpoint is also $125,000, from 36 jobs, while the typical engineering job of any level offers $227,500. The range is wide. Shield AI lists some new-grad software jobs at $79,000 to $110,000, and Nooks lists its new-grad software engineer job at $200,000. Pay is base salary only, without stock or bonuses.
Are companies hiring more new graduates?
They said they would. In the spring, employers told the National Association of Colleges and Employers that they planned to hire 5.6% more graduates from the Class of 2026 than the year before, according to NACE's Job Outlook 2026 Spring Update, published April 15, 2026. That was a median from 185 employers, and it turned around a fall estimate of a 2.4% cut. NACE hasn't published its outlook for the Class of 2027 on the pages we could read.
We can't say whether entry-level postings are rising or falling on our board, because our daily history keeps each company's total, not its job titles. What we can say is how fresh they are. 8.8% of entry-level jobs were posted in the last 30 days, about the same as the 8.9% for all jobs, so beginners' jobs aren't being posted any faster or slower than the rest.
Our numbers count job postings, not hires. One posting can fill several seats, especially new-grad postings, which often hire a whole class of engineers. And the companies we follow lean toward tech, so this count leaves out the entry-level IT help desk, hospital and government jobs that many people search for.
If you'd rather start with a summer job, our internships board lists all 2,552 open internships, and Applied Materials (59) and NVIDIA (58) had the most jobs with "new grad" or "new college graduate" in the title on November 9.
Sources
- Federal Reserve Bank of New York, The Labor Market for Recent College Graduates, 2026 Q3 highlights, read November 9, 2026. Unemployment rate for recent graduates (ages 22 to 27) 5.2%; underemployment rate 42.5%.
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Employment Situation, October 2026, released November 6, 2026. Unemployment rate 4.1%.
- National Association of Colleges and Employers, Employers Expect to Hire 5.6% More New College Graduates This Year, April 15, 2026. Job Outlook 2026 Spring Update, 185 employers, median planned change in hiring.
- Hiring Tempo, open jobs on 816 company career pages, November 9, 2026. Entry level means the title says junior, entry level, new grad, early career, apprentice or trainee, or starts with "Associate," with no senior, staff, principal, lead, manager, director, counsel or executive words. Internships are counted separately. Pay figures use only US postings where the company published a yearly range in US dollars.