Entry-Level Dev Jobs: Only 9% Explicitly Accepted Beginners

Twice as many of these 2026 US listings, nearly 1 in 5, required two or more years of professional experience. More than 4 in 10 stated no number of years at all. Read the requirements, not the label.

One AT&T listing on LinkedIn carried the “Entry level” label and asked for “a doctorate and 8 years of experience OR a master’s and 10 years OR a bachelor’s and 12 years OR an associate’s and 14 years OR HS and 16 years.” Its title was NMS ServiceNow Software Designer (IT Software Developer III) (Government). The label put it in the results of anyone using LinkedIn’s “Entry level” filter to find a first job.

Listings like this were rare: 133 of the 5,625 (2.4%) required 5 or more years. Far more, 603, asked for 2 years.

Three findings from the listings we analyzed:

At Global Software Companies (GSC), we analyzed 5,625 US software listings that carried the “Entry level” label on LinkedIn between January and August 2026, each with “software” plus developer, engineer or programmer in the title. Only 490, or 8.7%, explicitly accepted beginners with no professional experience. Twice that number required two or more years of professional experience: 1,010 listings, or nearly 1 in 5 (18.0%). Another 43% stated no number of years at all.

Anyone filtering for “Entry level” software jobs started with a small pool. Of the 96,309 US software listings in our collection for this period, 13,697 (14.2%) carried the Entry level label, while 64,782 (67.3%) were labeled Mid-Senior level. Indeed’s data also show few entry-level software roles: its Hiring Lab, which classifies postings by the tasks they describe, found that 4.5% of software development postings were entry level in the first quarter of 2026, against almost half of all postings. Entry-level openings were also getting scarcer. Across all occupations, Indeed’s entry-level postings were down 7.5% on a year earlier as of May 2026, and the New York Fed described recent graduates’ unemployment as elevated, at about 5.6% in the second quarter of 2026.

How Many Entry-Level Software Jobs Require Experience?

In our analysis of 5,625 US software listings labeled “Entry level” on LinkedIn (January–August 2026), just over 1 in 4 (25.7%) required a specific amount of professional experience: 18% required two or more years, and 7% three or more. Only 9% explicitly accepted none.

The full distribution of stated requirements:

“Preferred only” means the listing presented years of experience as preferred rather than required.

Leaving out a number of years is common across US job postings. Indeed’s Hiring Lab found that fewer than 1 in 3 US postings (30%) named a specific number of years of experience in April 2024, down from about 40% in April 2022.

Our 18% figure held up when we counted reposts once (19.8%) and when we left out AI-training work (16.5%).

About 1 in 14 listings — 407, or 7.2% — required 3+ years. Of those, 133 listings (2.4% of all 5,625) required 5+ years, and 26 (0.5%) required 10 or more. Some asked for 14 years or more; the AT&T listing above did at its associate’s-degree rung, though its lowest requirement was 8 years with a doctorate.

Do “Entry-Level” Listings Say They’re Entry Level?

Most listings gave no sign of a junior role beyond the label. Nearly two-thirds, 3,628 (64.5%), relied on the label alone, with no junior signal anywhere in the title or description. Only 1,194 (21.2%) signaled a junior role in their own title or text, such as a “Junior” or “Graduate” title, a numbered level like “Engineer I”, or a stated graduate route. Another 344 (6.1%) contradicted the label, with titles or text that read as senior. We didn’t assess the remaining 459 (8.2%), mostly AI-training work or roles outside our scope.

Some contradictions were visible in the title alone. Northrop Grumman’s Sentinel Deputy Chief Software Engineer carried the Entry level label and asked for “16+ years of experience with Bachelors in STEM; 14+ years of experience with Masters in STEM”. CGI’s Sr GoLang (GO) Software Developer carried the label too, alongside “15+ years of working experience as a Software Developer in a Large Enterprise Environment”.

Is “Junior” in the Title a Guarantee?

A junior title was a better signal than the label, but not a guarantee. Of the 764 listings with junior, entry, graduate or associate in the title, 48 (6.3%) required 2+ years of experience, against 19.8% of other listings. Of those 48, 19 required 3+ years.

Belay Technologies’ Junior Software Engineer stated: “Five (5) years’ experience as a SWE … is required”. EverWatch’s Software Engineer, Junior asked for “4+ years of software development experience”. Haystack’s Junior Software Developer, reposted 8 times, asked for “3+ years of software development experience”, and Vierra Digital’s Junior Software Engineer for “3+ years of professional software engineering experience”.

What Do These “Entry-Level” Jobs Pay?

Listings that asked for 2 years advertised pay close to mid-senior levels: a median of $151,250 (52 listings), against $160,000 for listings labeled “Mid-Senior level” and $95,000 for those labeled “Entry level”. Listings requiring under 2 years advertised a median of $134,688 (36 listings). These figures rest on a small slice of the data, though: only 7.5% of listings showed yearly pay, and the groups may differ in location and role.

For context, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the median annual wage for software developers was $135,980 in May 2025. That figure covers wages paid at every experience level, not advertised pay.

Who Posts the Listings That Require 3+ Years?

Counting each listing text once, consultancies and staffing firms were among the most frequent advertisers of listings requiring 3+ years. Those listings were also more often contract work: leaving out AI-training listings, 14% (36 of 255) were labeled Contract, against 5% of other listings (235 of 4,932).

Some were AI-training work: paid work evaluating or training AI models. They made up 152 of the 407 listings requiring 3+ years (37%), but mostly through reposts; one title appeared 80 times. Counted once, they were 18 of 241 (7%). Across all 5,625 listings, 438 (7.8%) were AI-training work.

Which Entry-Level Jobs Really Welcome Beginners?

Some listings clearly welcomed beginners: 490 (8.7%) explicitly accepted no professional experience, fewer than 1 in 10. Another 43% of listings stated no number of years at all, and silence is not a requirement. A further 435 (7.7%) asked for fewer than 2 years. Some listings named other routes in: internships, projects or a degree in place of years on the job. For what these listings said about degrees, see our analysis of degree requirements.

How Do Experience Requirements Vary by State?

Among the 11 states with at least 120 listings, the share requiring 2+ years varied by state. Maryland, Washington and Colorado showed the highest shares, 24–29%. Texas, California, Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia showed 13–15%, against 16.7% overall (830 of 4,978 listings). These shares describe the listings we collected, not state job markets.

*New York is shown on the unique-listing basis because one advertiser posted 53% of the state’s listings. Counting all 640 listings, the share was 10.0% (95% interval ±2.3 points). The intervals treat each listing as independent, so they aren’t margins of error for state job markets.

The full state table is on our research data page.

Methods and Limits

We analyzed 5,625 US software listings posted on LinkedIn in January–August 2026 (about 4 in 5 in July and August), each carrying the “Entry level” label and a title containing “software” plus developer, engineer or programmer. We also counted identical descriptions once, giving 3,811 “unique listings”.

We classified every listing with AI assistance under written rules and re-reviewed uncertain and high-impact cases, also with AI assistance. A GSC researcher checked about 1 in 5 of the AI classifications by hand and reviewed the edge cases those checks identified. We counted a stated number of years only when the listing presented it as professional, industry or work experience, or as experience in software development as a whole; durations tied to one language, tool or area of software work did not count unless stated that way. “Required” means stated as mandatory; preferred experience is reported separately.

These are selected listings, not a representative sample of all US jobs; we make no claim about how the label is set. Check our numbers: the screening file gives our classification of all 5,625 listings and the aggregate figures, with a script that recomputes this article’s figures.

Download the data and read the full methods. Related: Do you need a degree for an entry-level software job?

Last updated 3 November 2026. Corrections: [email protected].

This article draws on GSC’s analysis, the saved listings quoted above and the outside sources linked in the text:

• Global Software Companies, US entry-labeled software listings: screening file, version 2026-10-11c: GSC’s classification of 5,625 LinkedIn listings, January–August 2026, with aggregate figures and a reproduction script; definitions and methods.

• Global Software Companies, US entry-labeled software job listings, version 2026-10-12b. This narrower dataset contains 2,517 listings; the article’s figures come from the screening file above.

• Saved copies of the LinkedIn listings quoted in the article, from AT&T, Northrop Grumman, CGI, EverWatch, Haystack, Belay Technologies and Vierra Digital, captured January–August 2026. LinkedIn removes listings when they close, so we don’t link to them.

Other sources: