2017 software development salary survey report

Brian Suda & Roger Magoulas

17

Tools, Trends, Titles: What Pays (and What Doesn’t)
for Programming Professionals

20

Software Development Salary Survey



2017 SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT SALARY SURVEY

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survey is to give you a helpful resource for your career,
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But to provide you with the best possible information
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I


2017 Software Development
Salary Survey
Tools, Trends, Titles: What Pays (and What Doesn’t)
for Programming Professionals

Brian Suda & Roger Magoulas


2017 DESIGN SALARY SURVEY

REVISION HISTORY FOR THE FIRST EDITION

by Brian Suda and Roger Magoulas

2017-04-10: First Release

Editor: Dawn Schanafelt
Designer: Ellie Volckhausen
Production Editor: Shiny Kalapurakkel

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April, 2017: First Edition


2017 SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT SALARY SURVEY

Table of Contents

Executive Summary................................................................................ 1
Introduction.......................................................................................... 2
Salary Overview..................................................................................... 4
Geography............................................................................................ 6
Company Size........................................................................................ 9
Team Size.............................................................................................15
Collaboration.......................................................................................17
Individual Background...........................................................................19
Title, Roles, and Tasks........................................................................... 23
Tools and Programming Languages...................................................... 32
Work Evaluation...................................................................................47

Career Development Preferences.......................................................... 53
The Model in Full..................................................................................55
Conclusion.......................................................................................... 56

V


2017 SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT SALARY SURVEY

OVER 6,800
RESPONDENTS
FROM A VARIETY
OF INDUSTRIES
COMPLETED
THE SURVEY

YOU CAN EARN OUR SINCERE GRATITUDE by taking the
2018 survey—it only takes about 5 to 10 minutes, and is essential for
us to continue to provide this kind of research.
oreilly.com/programming/2018-programming-salary-survey.html


2017 SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT SALARY SURVEY

Executive Summary
THIS REPORT EXPLORES THE LANDSCAPE of the professionals working in all facets of software development, including details about the relationship between roles, location,
company size, industry, and earnings. The results are based
on more than 6,800 responses collected via an online survey.
We paid special attention to the variables that correlate with
salary, but it’s not just about money: we also analyzed what

tools, tasks, and organizational processes respondents most
commonly use.
In this, our second annual Software Development Salary
Survey, we find some consistency in what matters to software
developers. Much like last year, our results show that the
better-paying jobs tend to concentrate in tech centers, that
experience matters more than age, and that knowing more
tools, working with more people in a wider variety of roles,
and working for larger organizations all correlate with higher
wages. And, the data shows that knowing when to hold ’em
and when to fold ’em (i.e., self-reported good negotiating
skills) might be a key to higher salaries.
The median salary this year was down worldwide compared
to last year, likely caused by a drop in the share of highly
paid US-based respondents and a currency exchange-based
decline for Western Europeans who made up a larger share of
survey participants compared to last year.

Other key findings from this report include:
■■ US respondents, particularly those in California, report the
highest salaries.
■■ The larger the company, the higher the reported salaries
(the small cohort of one-person organization is an exception, with reported salaries higher than respondents at
organizations with less than 1,000 employees).
■■ Compared to last year, there was no real salary change
for respondents working at large companies.
■■ Software industry respondents (by far the largest share of
survey participants) and consultants reported the lowest
median income.
■■ Those self-reporting a high level of negotiating and bargaining skills also reported the highest median incomes.

■■ As with the other salary surveys we’ve run, those attending the most meetings—a proxy for higher levels of
responsibility—report the highest incomes.
We hope that you will find the information in this report
useful. If you can spare 5–10 minutes, go take the survey
yourself: oreilly.com/programming/2018-programming-salary-survey.html.
You can download last year’s survey from
oreilly.com/ideas/2016-software-development-salary-survey-report.

1


2017 SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT SALARY SURVEY

Introduction

THE RESULTS FROM O’REILLY’S SECOND ANNUAL
SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT SALARY SURVEY ARE IN.
This anonymous online survey ran last fall and winter and attracted more than 6,800 programmers, tech leads, managers,
and students—an increase of more than 1,000 respondents
compared to 2016. The respondents were from 110 countries,
including all 50 US states and the District of Columbia.
Use data from the report to compare yourself to others at
similar companies and positions, and find out what roles,
tools, work styles, organizational skills, and work environments correlate with the highest salaries.

2

If you are looking to change jobs, about to have your annual
employee review, or moving to a new town, this report will
help you benchmark your skills and salary expectations. You’ll

learn where you fit and how you might leverage these potentially career-changing findings.
When calculating salary values, we omitted responses from
people who identified themselves as students (about 6.5% of
respondents) to offset the negative skew on reported earnings
from those trying to balance part-time or full-time work with
their academic load. All salary numbers in this report exclude students, but student responses are used in some charts to compare
skills and tools used by students versus professionals.


PERCENTAGE CHANGE IN SALARY OVER LAST THREE YEARS
SHARE OF RESPONDENTS
Excludes Students

NA (salary was zero)
Negative change
No change
+0% to +10%

Percentage Change

+10% to +20%
+20% to +30%
+30% to +40%
+40% to +50%
+50% to +75%
+75% to +100% (double)
+100% to +200% (triple)
Over triple
0%

5%

10%
Share of Respondents

15%

20%


2017 SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT SALARY SURVEY

Salary Overview
COMPARED TO THE 2016 SURVEY, SALARIES ARE
DOWN ABOUT $10,000 despite an increase in salaries from
US respondents. Here’s what’s behind this drop:
■■ US respondents report much higher
median salaries than the rest of the
world: $115K in 2017, up about 5%
over 2016.
■■ The share of US respondents
dropped from 61% to 46% of our
total.
■■ Western European respondents
reported lower salaries ($58K),
nearly 7% lower than what was
reported last year.

US respondents report
much higher median

salaries than the
rest of the world.

■■ European salaries were effectively reduced by the rising
value of the US Dollar compared to the British Pound (up
16%) and Euro (up 8%) compared to 2016.
■■ The share of Western European respondents increased
from 20% to 26%.
Countries with varying supply and demand conditions, different healthcare and tax regimes, volatile exchange rates, and

4

other factors all make comparing salaries worldwide difficult
at best. For a non-numerical perspective on salaries, we
asked respondents to rate their satisfaction with their salaries.
Despite the differences in salaries by
country and region, about 50% of the
non-student respondents were satisfied, 31% were neutral, leaving only
about 20% unhappy with what they
make.
Students show a less happy picture,
with 37% positive toward their salaries, 29% neutral, and 34% unhappy.
The most unsatisfied student group
seem justified in their gloom, with a median salary of just
over $11K!

In the horizontal bar charts throughout this report, we include
the interquartile range (IQR) to show the middle 50% of
respondents’ answers to questions such as salary. One quarter
of the respondents has a salary below the displayed range,

and one quarter has a salary above the displayed range.


TOTAL SALARY
SHARE OF RESPONDENTS
Excludes Students

$0K
$20K
$40K

(US DOLLARS)

$60K
$80K

Total Salary

$100K
$120K
$140K
$160K
$180K
$200K
> $200K
0%

5%

10%

Share of Respondents

15%

20%


2017 SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT SALARY SURVEY

Geography

CERTAIN REGIONS ARE OUTLIERS WHEN IT COMES
TO SALARY. For example, within the US, the West Coast has
a higher median salary than other parts of the country, likely
due to the concentration of tech
companies in the Silicon Valley area.

There is a stark difference between the US, with a
median salary of $115K and the rest of the world. The
next closest region, Australia / New Zealand, comes in
nearly 22% less at $90K, Western Europe shows a median of
$60K, and in Eastern Europe we
see only $28K. Factors like the
differences in cost of living, local
demand for tech talent, respondent experience, and taxes help
explain the wide range of salaries for developers.

California salaries are
$15–$20K higher than any
other part of the US, with a

median of $139K.

California salaries are $15–$20K
higher than any other part of the
US, with a median of $139K. The
northeast has the next highest
salaries, with $124.5K median, and
the Pacific Northwest follows at
$120K median. These US regions
are home to other big technology
hubs: cities like New York and Boston in the Northeast, and
companies like Amazon and Microsoft in the Northwest.
The Midwest is the lowest-paid region of the United States
(if you ignore “other”), but even it doesn’t do too badly. The
median salary is almost $100K, and Texas alone is $106K.

6

Some of the regional salary
discrepancies could be caused by respondents incorrectly
performing currency conversions, or doing no conversion at
all. For example, reporting 30K British pounds as 30K USD
would lower the averages.


SHARE OF RESPONDENTS
Includes Students

WORLD REGION

4%

11%

26%

CANADA

EASTERN EUROPE

WESTERN
EUROPE

46%

5%
ASIA

UNITED STATES

1%
4%

AFRICA

LATIN AMERICA

3%
AUSTRALIA/NZ

SALARY MEDIAN AND IQR (US DOLLARS)
Excludes Students

$0K

Region

United States
Western Europe
Eastern Europe
Asia
Latin America
Canada
Australia/NZ
Africa
$30K

$60K

$90K

Range/Median

$120K

$150K


US REGION
SHARE OF RESPONDENTS

Includes Students

11%

13%

PACIFIC NW

NORTHEAST

10%

19%

MID-ATLANTIC

MIDWEST

10%

19%

11%

SW/MOUNTAIN

SOUTH

CALIFORNIA

6%
TEXAS

SALARY MEDIAN AND IQR (US DOLLARS)
Excludes Students
California
Midwest
Northeast
Region

South
Pacific NW
Mid-Atlantic
SW/Mountain
Texas
$0K

$50K

$100K
Range/Median

$150K

$200K


2017 SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT SALARY SURVEY

Company Size

OUR RESULTS SHOW THAT THE BIGGER THE COMPANY,
THE HIGHER THE SALARY. About a third of our respondents
(32%) worked for 2- to 100-person companies. Their median
salary was $65K, which is $15K lower
than our overall median. As companies
grow, so do salaries: the median was
$78K for companies with 101–1,000
employees, $91K for 1,001–10,000
employees, and a generous $103K for
organizations with more than 10,000
employees.

Comparing 2017 to last year, we see small and mid-size
company respondents losing salary traction relative to those
working in large companies (1,000+ employees):
■■ One-person firms: $83K, down
$13K (-13%)

The majority of
companies don’t make
it to their fifth birthdays,
which indicates that
those that do are onto
something.

One-person organizations are an exception. Their $83K median salary falls
between respondents from 101–1,000
employee firms ($78K) and 1,000–
10,000 employee firms ($91K). The

small size of the one-person organization—a bit over 2%
of respondents­— may be focused on specialized work that
commands higher pay.

9

■■ 2–100 employees: $65K, down $13K
(-17%)
■■ 100–1,000 employees: $78K, down
$14K (-15%)
■■ 1,001–10,000 employees: $91K,
down $4K (-3%)
■■ 10,000+ employees: $103K, down
$5K (-5%)

When we look at companies by age,
we see a similar trend: the older the
company, the higher the salaries. The majority of companies
don’t make it to their fifth birthdays, which indicates that
those that do are onto something. Older, more experienced

9


2017 SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT SALARY SURVEY
companies probably also know that it is expensive to recruit and train new
team members, so offering higher salaries to keep people can be worthwhile in the long run.
What specific industries do our respondents represent? It’s no surprise
that Software is by far the largest category—36% of the respondents. The
Software industry’s median salary is $73K, $7,000 less than the overall

survey average. Aside from Consulting, which has a median salary of $72K,
Software is actually the category with the lowest median salary.
All the other industry segments had fewer respondents than Software,
and showed higher median incomes, with the exception of Consulting.
The results may show some selection bias: those working in the Software
vertical likely have a wide range of experience levels working on similar
types of tasks while also showing the widest range of salaries of any
vertical ($36K to $119K). Those in other verticals (perhaps doing more
specialized programming requiring more experience and/or education) can
demand higher salaries.

10


COMPANY SIZE
SHARE OF RESPONDENTS
Includes Students

18%

10,000+ EMPLOYEES

18%

1,001 TO 10,000 EMPLOYEES

29%

101 TO 1000 EMPLOYEES

2 TO 100 EMPLOYEES

1
Company Size (employees)

32%

2017/2016 SALARY MEDIAN AND IQR (US DOLLARS)
Excludes Students

2 to 100
101 to 1,000

2%

1 EMPLOYEE

1,001 to 10,000
10,000 or more
$0K

$30K

$60K

$90K

Range/Median
2017

2016

$120K

$150K


INDUSTRY
SHARE OF RESPONDENTS
Includes Students

4%
4%

5%

EDUCATION

HEALTHCARE / MEDICAL

5%

RETAIL / ECOMMERCE

4%

GOVERNMENT

COMPUTERS /
HARDWARE

3%

MANUFACTURING /
HEAVY INDUSTRY

3%

CARRIERS /
TELECOMMUNICATIONS

3%

MEDIA / ENTERTAINMENT

7%

BANKING / FINANCE

3%

ADVERTISING / MARKETING / PR

11%

2%

CONSULTING

INSURANCE

1%

SEARCH / SOCIAL NETWORKING

36%

SOFTWARE

9%
OTHER


INDUSTRY

SALARY MEDIAN AND IQR (US DOLLARS)
Excludes Students
Software
Consulting
Banking / Finance
Retail / Ecommerce
Healthcare / Medical
Industry

Education
Computers / Hardware
Government
Manufacturing / Heavy industry
Carriers / Telecommunications
Media / Entertainment

Advertising / Marketing / PR
Insurance
Search / Social networking
Other
$0K

$30K

$60K

$90K

Range/Median

$120K

$150K


COMPANY AGE
SHARE OF RESPONDENTS
Includes Students

41%

24%

MORE THAN 20 YEARS

11 TO 20 YEARS

18%

6 TO 10 YEARS

14%

2 TO 5 YEARS

2017/2016 SALARY MEDIAN AND IQR (US DOLLARS)
Excludes Students

less than 2 years

4%

Company Age

2 to 5 years
6 to 10 years

LESS THAN 2 YEARS

11 to 20 years
more than 20 years
$0K

$30K

$60K

$90K

Range/Median
2017

2016

$120K

$150K


2017 SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT SALARY SURVEY

Team Size
TEAM SIZE IS AN IMPORTANT FACTOR IN COMPENSATION.
Generally, people on larger teams make higher salaries. One-person
teams make around $69K median salary, whereas folks on 20+-person teams have a $99K median salary. This could simply be explained
by the fact that, in order to have a large team, you need a larger
company and, as we’ve seen, the larger the company, the higher the
median salary.
However, team sizes of one don’t necessarily mean small companies. One-person and small teams could simply mean that these
respondents are on small teams (or work by themselves) inside
large companies that don’t have many programmers or are not in
the Software industry.
It seems that it is better to work with more people, at least in terms
of salaries. As they say, a high tide raises all ships.

15

NUMBER OF PEOPLE INVOLVED ON A TYPICAL CODING PROJECT
SHARE OF RESPONDENTS
Excludes Students

1%
9%
15%
13%

8 TO 10
PEOPLE

16 TO 20
PEOPLE

3%

2%

10 TO 15
PEOPLE

MORE THAN
20 PEOPLE

6 TO 7
PEOPLE

5 PEOPLE

12%

4 PEOPLE

3 PEOPLE

1
2
3

Number of People

17%

SALARY MEDIAN AND IQR (US DOLLARS)
Excludes Students

4

17%
2 PEOPLE

5
6 to 7
8 to 10
10 to 15

11%

1 PERSON

16 to 20
More than 20
$0K

$30K

$60K

$90K

Range/Median

$120K

$150K


2017 SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT SALARY SURVEY

Collaboration
88% OF THE RESPONDENTS SAID THEY
COLLABORATE WITH PROGRAMMERS. According to our
results, who you collaborate with doesn’t have much impact on
your salary: when we look at the median salaries broken down by
collaborator, we find that they are between $80K to $94K, with
the exception of “None of the Above.”
Who you collaborate with doesn’t impact your salary, but not
collaborating certainly hinders it. The 3% of respondents who

worked solo and didn’t collaborate with people in any of the roles
we listed in our survey (designers, programmers, data scientists/
analysts, product managers, and salespeople) earned a median
salary of only $56K.

17


ROLES OF PEOPLE YOU WORK WITH
SHARE OF RESPONDENTS
Excludes Students

3%

OTHER

7%

38%

SALES PEOPLE

DATA SCIENTISTS / ANALYSTS

77%

DESIGNERS
SALARY MEDIAN AND IQR (US DOLLARS)
Excludes Students
Programmers

79%

Designers
Product managers

Roles

PRODUCT MANAGERS

Sales people
Industrial designers

85%

PROGRAMMERS

Other
$0K

$30K $60K $90K $120K $150K

Range/Median