I pulled every job on my prediction markets job board (100 active listings across Polymarket, Kalshi etc). Here's what stood out.
I run a job board for the prediction markets space and I went through every active job posting across the major prediction market companies (Polymarket, Kalshi etc) to see what the hiring data looks like. 100 roles in total, with title, salary, location, and tech stack data. Here's what stood out:
TL;DR
- Across 47 roles with disclosed pay, the median midpoint is $175,000
- The single highest-midpoint role on the board is Novig's Chief Compliance Officer at $275K–$325K base
- 76% of all roles are in New York City. Only 11% are remote-eligible
- Across engineering roles where pay is disclosed, Novig's median midpoint ($215K) sits 23% above Kalshi's ($175K) — and Novig's L5 band ($230K–$260K) is the highest engineering ladder I have on the board
Methodology - what I pulled and how
This is every active listing on my board as of May 2026. Polymarket (38) and Kalshi (29) make up two-thirds of the dataset, so anything below those two is a small sample.
The pay spread by role
Midpoint of the disclosed range, sorted descending.
| Role | Median midpoint | Range | n |
|---|---|---|---|
| Legal Counsel | $230,000 | $160K–$320K | 3 |
| Software Engineer | $215,000 | $85K–$280K | 11 |
| Senior/Staff Engineering | $195,525 | $101K–$260K | 4 |
| Designer | $177,500 | $110K–$270K | 2 |
| Quant / Trader | $175,000 | $60K–$250K | 5 |
| Marketing & Growth | $150,000 | $110K–$250K | 8 |
| Operations & Support | $130,000 | $27K–$240K | 7 |
| Markets & Forecasting | $127,500 | $60K–$240K | 2 |
| Other | $122,500 | $80K–$180K | 2 |
| Compliance & Surveillance | $120,000 | $100K–$325K | 3 |
(Table covers roles with disclosed pay)
The thing that jumped out: lawyers and compliance roles clear the top end of engineering at these companies. Kalshi's Technology & IP Counsel posts at $160K–$320K. Kalshi's Litigator posts at $180K–$280K. Novig's Chief Compliance Officer posts at $275K–$325K base, the single highest midpoint on the board. If you take the regulatory thesis seriously, this is what it looks like in dollars.
Polymarket vs Kalshi vs Novig
Polymarket discloses salary on 0 of its 38 active listings. Kalshi discloses 93% (27 of 29). Novig discloses 100% (11 of 11).
The function mix differs too:
- Polymarket - operations 29%, engineering 26%, marketing 16%, legal 11%, the rest spread across design, markets, product, and other. The largest function is operations: market ops analysts, support specialists, an office manager. They're building the machinery to run a giant exchange.
- Kalshi - engineering 24%, marketing & growth 24%, legal 17%, operations 14%. Marketing headcount equals engineering headcount, at exactly 7 roles each. They have a Marketing Stunts role. They have two influencer-ops roles (Influencer Sourcing & Activation, Influencer Operations). Polymarket has none of these.
- Novig is the smallest of the three but its engineering ladder is the most legible. Backend Engineer L4 posts at $200K–$230K. Backend Engineer L5 and Frontend Engineer L5 both post at $230K–$260K. They have the tightest, highest-floor engineering bands on the board. Novig's L5 midpoint ($245K) beats Kalshi's overall engineering median midpoint ($175K) by 40%.
The tech stack - what these companies are actually building on
Pulled by counting language/framework mentions across each company's job descriptions. Five companies have enough listings to characterize a stack; the other five are too small (3 listings or fewer).
| Company | Languages | Infra | Specialty |
|---|---|---|---|
| Polymarket | TypeScript, Python, Go, Rust, C++ | Kafka, Postgres, AWS | EVM / onchain / smart contracts / Polygon |
| Kalshi | Go, Python | AWS + GCP + Kubernetes + Terraform | Regulated cloud, exchange infra |
| Novig | Rust, Go, C++ (backend); TypeScript, React, React Native (frontend) | Light cloud footprint | Low-latency trading |
| White Swan Data | Python (50% of postings), some Node/Java | Docker, Postgres | Quant research, sports data |
| DRW | Python; blockchain tooling (ethers.js, Polygon RPC) | (not disclosed) | Prop trading, onchain desk |
(DRW only has 2 listings, so its row is illustrative rather than statistical.)
The differentiation is real. Polymarket has by far the most onchain-native stack: EVM, smart contracts, Polygon, Ethereum all show up across its postings. DRW's prediction markets desk also requires onchain tooling, but in a "trader who understands wallets" way rather than "engineer who writes smart contracts." Kalshi's stack centers on traditional regulated-cloud infra: AWS, GCP, Kubernetes, Terraform - which is what a CFTC-regulated exchange running its own clearing would build on. Novig's backend listings all require a systems-programming language (Rust, Go, or C++); its frontend listings are TypeScript/React. The split tells you they care about execution latency on one side and product surface on the other.
Where the jobs are
76 of 100 roles (76%) are in New York City. Of the 88 US jobs, 76 are in NYC, with the rest broken out as: Chicago 2 (both Akuna Capital quant researchers), Seattle 2 (both Alignerr contractor analysts), Jersey City 1, Philadelphia 1, Atlanta 1, plus 5 US jobs with no city specified (4 of which are remote, 1 hybrid). London has 7, all White Swan Data — the only meaningfully non-US company in the dataset has 12 listings total, 7 in London and 5 with no city specified.
NYC concentration tracks the regulatory geography. Polymarket and Kalshi are both HQ'd in New York (35 of 38 Polymarket roles and 29 of 29 Kalshi roles sit in NYC), and the CFTC sits in DC with most of its registered counterparties in NYC.
Only 11 of 100 roles are fully remote, and 6 more are hybrid. Kalshi and Novig are 100% onsite - zero remote, zero hybrid between them. Polymarket has 3 remote and 3 hybrid across its 38 listings (84% onsite).
The takeaway
The thing I didn't expect going in: the legal and compliance budget. The single highest-midpoint role on the board is a Chief Compliance Officer ($300K mid). The next legal role (Kalshi's IP Counsel) has a midpoint that ties with two of Kalshi's top software engineering postings. The talent these firms are bidding hardest for isn't just engineering, it's regulatory.
Polymarket is staffing operations and onchain engineering for global scale, Kalshi is staffing marketing and lawyers to win the US specifically, Novig is staffing a small, expensive, low-latency engineering team to compete on execution.
Full disclosure: I'm building predictionjobs.co, which is how I aggregated the dataset.