Software Engineer Salary in Virginia (2026)

Worth knowing: AWS HQ2 Arlington is the structural depth feature most national SE-market surveys understate for VA. Amazon's HQ2 (announced 2018, location decision finalized 2019 after the 'second headquarters' competition with substantial NY+VA + actually-Boston ultimate downselect) is centered on Pentagon City + Crystal City Arlington with ~25K planned employees by 2030+. AWS HQ2 has substantially reshaped Northern VA tech compensation by driving competitive bidding for senior cleared + commercial engineering talent. The cleared federal contractor cluster (Booz Allen Hamilton, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Leidos, ManTech, Engility/SAIC, plus hundreds of smaller IC contractors) creates the country's largest concentration of cleared software engineering work — senior cleared engineers with TS/SCI plus polygraph clearance routinely clear $215-365K TC. Capital One HQ McLean (~50K global employees, ~$35B revenue) operates the country's largest single-site bank tech employer — Capital One was an early major-bank cloud migration (moved 100% to AWS by 2020) and engineers Capital One Cafés + apps at scale. VA's progressive 2-5.75% income tax (top bracket hits at $17K, so most senior engineers pay 5.75% effective on most income) plus DC/MD/PA reciprocity (VA SEs working DC commercial sites pay only VA tax) plus 0.7% effective property tax creates a substantially favorable cleared-engineer tax structure. Combined with the cleared-work premium ($35-65K above non-cleared), senior VA engineers can approach Bay Area mid-tier comp on a take-home basis.