Software developer salaries in Romania

A senior software engineer in Romania earns a median of about $51,971 a year (247,972 RON). Here's pay by level and stack, contractor rates, and how Romania's hours line up with UK and US teams.

Senior salary: $51,971; median per year
Senior contractor: $35–$47; per hour
Overlap London: 6.5h; UTC+02:00
Overlap New York: 1.5h; English: very high

Salary by level

Level	RON	USD	GBP
Junior (0–2 yrs)	97,546	$20,444	£16,098
Mid (3–5 yrs)	188,976	$39,606	£31,186
Senior (6+ yrs)	247,972	$51,971	£40,922

Annual medians. USD at the 2026-10-14 rate.

Senior salary by stack

Specialism	USD / year	Contractor / hr
Frontend	$44,695	$30–$40
Backend	$57,168	$39–$52
Mobile	$49,892	$34–$45
DevOps & Cloud	$62,365	$42–$56
Data & AI	$63,924	$43–$58

Country median adjusted by global specialism premiums (Stack Overflow 2025).

The Romania developer market

About 795,527 developers on GitHub (2026).
English proficiency: very high (EF EPI rank 11).
The 10% income-tax exemption for IT employees (Art. 60(2)) was abolished from 1 Jan 2025 by GEO 156/2024, which raised gross employment cost for the same net pay.
Bucharest is the top-paying hub (senior median RON 262,037 on Levels.fyi). Cluj-Napoca and Iași are the other major centres.
Index.dev lists JavaScript and blockchain as top in-demand skills.

Hiring from Romania?

Vetted engineers at about $30/hr all-in.

Contracts, payroll and compliance handled. A senior in-house hire costs about £48/hr loaded in the UK and $82/hr in the US.

Hire in Romania

FAQ

How much does a senior software developer earn in Romania?+

The median senior software engineer salary in Romania is about 247,972 RON a year (about $51,971), against about $39,606 for mid-level and $20,444 for junior developers. Senior remote contractors typically charge $35–$47 an hour.

What is the time difference between Romania and the UK or US?+

Romania runs on UTC+02:00 in winter. A 09:00–17:30 working day there overlaps 6.5h with London and 1.5h with New York.

How much does it cost to hire a developer from Romania through OctogleHire?+

OctogleHire publishes one client rate: about $19/hr for a mid-level engineer and $30/hr for a senior, including vetting, contracts and payroll, with no placement fee. A comparable senior in-house hire costs about £48/hr loaded in the UK and $82/hr in the US.

Sources · Q4 2026

Method notes: Levels.fyi has no mid-level page, so mid is the all-levels median used as a proxy. Levels.fyi is crowdsourced total compensation weighted toward multinationals and likely overstates the local market. PayScale Romania (RON 35k/yr median) was rejected as implausible. Contractor ranges are Lemon.io middle-50% bands (medians: mid $30, senior $42; 1,442 contracts). Salary basis: Levels.fyi Romania median total comp: entry-level RON 97,546 (updated 6/10/2026), all levels RON 188,976 (6/22/2026), senior RON 247,972 (194 submissions, 9/24/2026)..