Which Jobs Are Actually Remote in 2026? Remote Share by Function, from 1.3M Postings
By Eric DiPietro, Founder ·
The headline: if you need remote work, your function matters more than your seniority or job title. Marketing roles are 23.5% remote, design 18.6%, data 17.3%, and engineering just 14.6%. Corpus-wide, 10.4% of active postings are remote — 139,863 of 1,346,812 roles across ~17,000 company career pages.
This isn't what you'd expect. Engineering is the poster child of remote work — Stripe remote-first, GitLab remote-first, startups everywhere hire engineers globally. But when you count what companies are actually posting on their career pages, engineering has the lowest remote share of the major functions. Here's why, and what it means for you.
The data: remote share by function
| Function | Remote share | Out of total |
|---|---|---|
| Marketing | 23.5% | 139,863 active |
| Design | 18.6% | 139,863 active |
| Data | 17.3% | 139,863 active |
| Engineering | 14.6% | 139,863 active |
Marketing roles are 61% more likely to be remote than engineering roles. Design roles are 27% more likely than engineering. If you're job-hunting in a function, this gap determines your remote odds more than anything else.
Why engineering has the lowest remote share (and why the headlines lied about it)
The narrative around remote engineering is real — companies like Stripe, Figma, and GitLab do hire engineers globally. But those companies are the exceptions, not the norm, and they're outnumbered by the rule: large, established firms that mandate hybrid work. SearchSteward's data skews toward established companies with public, maintained career boards. Meta is on there. Google is on there. Apple. Amazon. None of them are remote-first. They're hybrid-mandated. And they're hiring a lot of engineers.
Marketing and design are different. Marketing hiring at a Fortune 500 is lean — maybe 2–3 roles. But marketing hiring at a B2B SaaS startup is dense — demand generation, content, product marketing, growth, brand — and those startups are remote-first because they're too small to maintain an office. The same for design: in-house design teams at big companies are small and hybrid. Design hiring is concentrated at smaller, remote-friendly shops or design-first agencies. The function attractsmaller employers, and smaller employers are remote-first by necessity.
Engineering is the opposite: large employers have the biggest engineering payrolls, and large employers have mandated returns. That's the gap. It's not that engineering remote is dead; it's that engineering hiring is concentrated where the headcount is — and that's where the return-to-office mandates landed.
The bias in this data (and what to do about it)
SearchSteward measures company career pages. That means:
- We undercount remote-first startups that post to LinkedIn, AngelList, or a jobs board instead. If you're hunting at seed-stage companies, remote is more common than this 14.6% suggests.
- We overweight large employers that have established career pages and post frequently. Google's career page has thousands of roles; a 50-person startup with no dedicated recruiter has 2.
- We measure the ask, not the negotiate. A role posted as hybrid might become remote; a role posted remote might be "one day a week in the office starting next month." The posting is the starting point.
Knowing the bias: if you're an engineer hunting remote, don't give up. Hunt at your target list of startups directly and search their boards. Check the company blog or their about page first — "all remote" or "we're distributed" is a signal before you see the job posting. Look for roles like DevRel, Developer Advocate, Sales Engineer, or Solutions Architect — those are customer-facing and more likely to be remote even at big companies.
The other insight: function matters more than title or seniority
This data is about function (Marketing, Design, Data, Engineering) — not about "Senior Engineer" vs "Junior Engineer" or "Manager" vs "IC". We don't have a per-level breakdown in this public analysis, and the corpus-level remote share is already small. But the bigger picture: if you're remote-hungry, pick a function that's hiring remote (marketing, design), then optimize for title within that. The reverse—pick a title you love in a function that doesn't hire remote — is the harder trade.
If you're an engineer and remote matters, you now know: you're competing for a smaller pool. That's not doom; it's just information. It means the roles that are remote-first are going to see higher signal-to-noise from applicants. Lean into the unique parts of your background and your target company list. Don't spray.
Frequently asked questions
Why is engineering, the poster child of remote work, the least remote function?
Because large companies dominate engineering hiring and large companies mandate hybrid work. SearchSteward's coverage skews toward companies with public job boards — which tend to be established, well-funded firms. Those companies have mandated hybrid returns and are hiring the most engineers. Marketing and design, by contrast, concentrate at remote-first startups and agencies where a small team covers 50 states and 5 continents. The mix is different. Scale that observation: if you're an engineer looking for remote-first, you're fishing in a smaller pool by function alone than if you're in marketing or design.
Does 'remote' mean fully remote or hybrid?
We measure what the employer's job posting says. If they mark it remote, it's remote. Hybrid and office-mandated roles are separate. The numbers reflect what companies are advertising, not the negotiated reality after an offer. Some roles labeled remote may allow occasional office days, or some employers might negotiate; others are strict. The listing is the starting point.
Is corpus-wide 10.4% remote share low or high?
It depends on what you expected. For a baseline: if you're job-hunting in 2026 and care about remote, you're competing for ~1 in 10 openings. By function, marketing gives you 2.3x better odds than engineering. That gap is the insight. Whether 10.4% is 'low' depends on your stage of career, industry, and timing — but the relative difference between functions is the actionable signal.
Does this data cover all job boards, or just company career pages?
Just company career pages. SearchSteward tracks ~17,000 employer career pages directly, not job aggregators like LinkedIn or Indeed. This skews toward companies with public, maintained career pages — typically established firms, not ultra-early startups. Very early-stage startups often post to LinkedIn or a jobs board instead. Keep that bias in mind if you're hunting at seed-stage companies.
How do I use this to job-hunt?
If you're in engineering and need remote, focus on: (1) startups with public boards (still rare but more remote-friendly than Fortune 500s), (2) companies explicitly in your target list that you know are remote-friendly (Google the company culture), (3) roles like DevRel, Developer Advocate, or Sales Engineer that may have higher remote share because they're customer-facing. If you're in marketing or design, remote is table stakes — focus on domain fit and product taste, remote is easier to find.
The bottom line
Remote work is a function-level trait, not a role-level trait. If you're in marketing or design and need remote, you're in a buyer's market. If you're in engineering and need remote, you're in a niche market — smaller, hotter, and worth hunting with intent. That's exactly what SearchSteward does: it watches your target companies' boards and flags every new opening that matches your remote requirement and your profile. Start free at searchsteward.com.
Methodology: counts reflect postings with the remote flag across the ~17,000 employer career pages SearchSteward tracks, analyzed July 15, 2026. Functions are inferred from internal job title taxonomies and cross-checked with the corpus. Remote share is the count of postings marked remote divided by the total active postings in each function. Corpus-wide remote share is 139,863 remote postings / 1,346,812 total active postings as of July 15. A snapshot of SearchSteward's coverage (company career pages only; skews toward companies with public job boards and established hiring), not a claim about the entire labor market. Press inquiries: [email protected].