This is the full version of the 2017 Software Development Salary Survey. A downloadable edition is also available.

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. Learn faster. Dig deeper. See farther. 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: http://oreilly.com/programming/2018-programming-salary-survey.html. Note You can download last year’s survey from http://oreilly.com/ideas/2016-software-development-salary-survey-report.

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. 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. Note 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. Figure 2-1.

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.

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%. Note US respondents report

much higher median

salaries than the

rest of the world. Countries with varying supply and demand conditions, different

healthcare and tax regimes, volatile exchange rates, and 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! Note 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. Figure 3-1.

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. 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. 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. 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. Note California salaries are

$15–$20K higher than any

other part of the US, with a

median of $139K. Figure 4-1. Figure 4-2.

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. 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. 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%)

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 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. Figure 5-1. Figure 5-2. Figure 5-3. Figure 5-4.

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. Figure 6-1.

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. Figure 7-1.

Individual Background Gender We had over 425 female respondents—a large enough cohort

to likely provide representative results. They represented 8%

of survey participants. As we’ve noted, all salaries are down in 2017; however,

women increased their relative salaries compared to the male

respondents, from 86% to 92.5% of what their male counterparts

earn. In the 2016 survey, women earned around $80K

on average, whereas their male counterparts earned $93K.

This year, women’s median salaries dropped to an average of

$74K and men’s to $80K. There also appears to be an uptick in new women into the industry:

over a third of the female respondents have less than

5 years’ experience, as compared to about 17% of men. Unfortunately, female respondents still trail men when it

comes to their roles. There were no VP/Director or C-level

women reporting in the survey. The majority of women, 65%,

described themselves as software developer/engineer. (That’s

8% higher than their male counterparts.) If the trend keeps up and more women continue to enter the

software industry, it will begin to redress the lopsided gender ratio. And as women move up the ranks, join larger companies,

and gain more experience, hopefully their salaries will

increase and close the pay gap. Figure 8-1. Age The age of the respondents skews youngish, with two thirds

of respondents 40 or younger, 22% in the 41–50 range, and

only 13% older than 50. It seems that salaries increase with age and experience.

The over 50s were the only group to increase their salaries

compared to 2016. While the over-50 group increased $2K,

the 41–50 group lost around $5K in salary. The 31–40 group

dropped from $90K to $76K, and the 30-and-younger group

dropped from $64K to $51K. Years of Experience Across the board, the more experience you have, the higher

the salary. On average, every year you work, you get a

$4.4K pay raise. Respondents with less than 5 years’ experience had a median

salary of $48K. At the other end of the spectrum, those with

20+ years’ experience had a median salary of $114K. Education A bit more than half of our respondents list computer science

as their main degree, about the same as last year. 40% of

participants have a master’s and about 6% have a PhD. This

extra education appears to pay off: compared to those whose

education stopped at the Baccalaureate level, respondents

with master’s make about 18% higher salaries; for PhDs, the

figure is 45% higher. While this is an impressive increase ($17K+ higher in salary for

a PhD versus a master’s degree), is the extra time and expense

of getting a PhD worth it? That depends on the type of work

you’d most likely engage in. Folks with advanced degrees likely

work on more specialized, cutting-edge challenges. These

jobs are usually in high demand and therefore offer higher

pay, which helps offset student loans. Figure 8-2. Figure 8-3.

Title, Roles, and Tasks 58% OF RESPONDENTS classified themselves as software

developers or software engineers; their median salary is

around $71K. When salaries are ranked by role, data scientist/

analyst is at the bottom: $84K Consultant (3% of respondents)

$75K UX/Design (2% of respondents)

$72K Other (5% of respondents)

$71K Software engineer (58% of respondents)

$70K Data scientist/analyst (5% of respondents) It seems strange that people in Consultant and UX/Design

roles make more than software developers/engineers. This

is probably due to the small number of respondents in these

roles. Given more respondents, there would be a broader spectrum of possible salaries, and more companies and tasks

represented, which would give us a better picture of the real

salary levels. As we move up the hierarchy, those with C-level titles (CTO,

CIO, etc.) are paid a median

salary of $102K, architect/technical

leads make around $104K,

and VPs/directors earn around

$140K. Software engineer/developer

was the role the largest percentage

of students identified

as. Their median salary was

$35K, half what their non-student

counterparts are paid. Not

surprisingly, there were no VP or C-level respondents in the

student group, and only 6% listed themselves a technical lead

(compared to 14% of non-students). Note It seems strange that people

in Consultant and UX/Design

roles make more than

software developers/engineers. Figure 9-1. Figure 9-2. Meetings A lucky 3% of respondents don’t attend meetings, whereas

the largest share of respondents (43%) attend 4–8 hours

of meetings a week. This may

seem like a lot, but if they are

using the Agile methodology,

they probably have a 15- to

30-minute stand-up each day.

Four days of that adds up to 2

hours a week; throw in a 1-hour

planning meeting or retrospective

and you’re getting close to

4 hours. An unlucky 3.5% of respondents

spend more than half their

work week—20 or more hours—in meetings. Somewhat counterintuitively, the more time you spend in

meetings (and presumably not actually producing output), the

higher your salary. This doesn’t mean you should go and book yourself into every optional meeting you can; there is probably

an underlying factor, such as responsibility level, which affects

both salary and time spent in

meetings. For example, C-level

respondents are likely to spend

a lot of time in meetings, working

long hours, and making

difficult decisions, and they are

compensated accordingly. So it

isn’t necessarily the hours spent

in meetings that affect the

salary, but probably the level of

responsibility that determines

the number of meetings. The findings regarding meetings aligns with what we’ve

found in all O’Reilly salary surveys to date: time spent in meetings

serves as a reliable proxy for the increased responsibility

that comes with the type of leadership, planning, and management

roles associated with higher salaries. Note Somewhat counterintuitively,

the more time you spend in

meetings (and presumably

not actually producing output),

the higher your salary. Figure 9-3. Figure 9-4. Coding The survey data shows that more hours spent per week coding

correlates with lower salaries. Similar to what we find with

meetings, junior coders and those in less-responsible positions

(and positions with fewer non-programming duties) spend

more time programming than those who don’t. This trend applies to students and non-students alike: more

time coding means lower salary. Tasks The type of tasks you perform

can have a big impact

on your salary. Depending

on your tasks, you might

make a whopping $130K

or more a year. “Developing

products that rely on

real-time data analytics” is

the highest paid task that is

independent of seniority. The

16% of respondents who listed this task among their duties

earn a median salary of around $96K and the top 25% of

those respondents had salaries greater than $134K. As mentioned earlier, the vast majority of respondents are

software developers/engineers, so it’s no surprise that 69% of respondents say they “Write code for collaborative projects.”

This garners a median salary of around $81K, slightly

more than the overall median salary (excluding students). For

comparison, writing code for collaborative projects earned a

student a $41K median salary. When we look at all the other tasks noted, there are a few standouts.

Design work is performed by around 23% of the respondents;

their median salary was

$100K. 12% of students said

they engage in design work;

their median salary was $60K,

one of the highest salaries by

task type for students. This

could show that companies

are willing to pay more for

multi-talented people who can

code, design, and handle other

responsibilities. Planning large projects, performing

project management, and managing engineers were

tasks listed by respondents who earned some of the highest

salaries. These tasks are associated with more senior-level

positions with more responsibilities, so the increased salaries

make sense. Note Planning large projects, performing

project management, and managing

engineers were tasks listed

by respondents who earned some

of the highest salaries. Figure 9-5. Figure 9-6.

Work Evaluation A CAREER IS SO MUCH MORE THAN JUST WORK AND PAY.

This year’s survey contained several subjective questions that

were meant to capture how respondents felt about their jobs. It turns out you don’t always have to make sacrifices to get

better pay. Respondents who are happier with their situations

and have better work/life balance also have better salaries.

You don’t have to be miserable

to be paid well. Respondents were asked to

rate, on a scale from 1 to 5

(1 = poor, 5 = excellent), how

easy it would be to find a new

job more or less equivalent to

their current position. This was

used to gauge how well people

could move laterally through companies. 64% of respondents

were positive (4 or 5) that they could move with ease. The

students also shared this high level of optimism, with 60%

answering positively. Our respondents were less confident about negotiating and

bargaining for a better salary or perks. When asked about their bargaining skills, 38% answered 3 (not bad but not

great), 34% responded positively (4 or 5), and 28% felt they

lacked these skills (1 or 2). When we look at just the self-assessed better bargainers

(those who responded 4 or 5), we see that they do indeed

have much better salaries than other respondents. The best

self-assessed bargainers,

those who responded 5,

were earning around $107K,

whereas those who responded

3, had salaries nearly $38K

lower! This data suggests

that perhaps the best way to

improve your salary is to spend

time (and maybe even money)

becoming a better bargainer. If we dig a bit deeper into some of the non-salary aspects of

a job—such as flexibility, work/life balance, location, growth

opportunities, and company culture—we see a striking increase

in salary as people rate these categories higher. Note This year’s survey contained

several subjective questions that

were meant to capture how

respondents felt about their jobs. Figure 11-1. Figure 11-2. The vast majority of people are very positive toward their

work flexibility: 73% responded with a 4 or 5, and their median

salaries were $77K and $91K, respectively. Only 9% had a

negative view of their work flexibility (1 or 2) and their salaries

were $56K and $66K, respectively. The disparity between

the lowest and highest median salaries based on flexibility is

around $35K. This is the largest difference in any of the Work

Evaluation categories. It seems that flexible companies also

pay their employees well, so you likely don’t have to sacrifice

income for flexibility. When it comes to work/life balance, 22% of the respondents

were neutral (3), whereas 63% see themselves as having a

positive work/life balance (4 or 5). Companies that allow for

good work/life balance also tend to offer better salaries. The

median salary of those who think their work/life balance is

poor (1) was $60K, whereas those who rated their work/life

balance as excellent (5) had a median salary of $91K. 67% of the respondents feel positive about the location of

their current roles (4 or 5). This might be a self-fulling system:

if a company’s location is too far away from home or the

work environment is not good, it’s unlikely that employees

will work there for long. By taking a job at a company with

a better location, you’d naturally rate it higher. So it makes

sense that this data point would be positive simply because people will self-correct away from being negative. There’s a

small trend in salaries increasing with location satisfaction. 30% of the respondents were neutral (3) about their opportunities

for growth. Their median salary was around $82K,

slightly higher than the overall median salary of $80K for all

respondents. 42% of the respondents have a positive view

toward growth opportunities (4 or 5). They have salaries ranging

from $81K to $90K. There is a $28K difference in median salaries between those

who rated their growth opportunities as poor (1)—10% of

respondents at $72K—and those who rated them excellent

(5)—14% at $90K. Salaries also increased with better company culture. The

median salary difference between respondents who chose the

lowest rating (1) and those who chose the highest rating (5) is

$15K. In general, respondents were happy with their company

culture: only 20% rated it negatively (1 or 2), whereas 52%

had positive views of it (4 or 5). It certainly does seem that you can have your cake and eat it

too. Companies who respect their employees both pay them

well and create a positive place to work. Maybe companies

realize that getting and keeping great talent is expensive, but

cheaper than constantly trying to find new talent. Figure 11-3. Figure 11-4.

Career Development Preferences THE SURVEY ASKED RESPONDENTS IF THEY ENGAGED

IN ANY SPECIFIC CAREER-DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES:

reading books and blogs, watching videos, taking online classes,

and attending conferences. It turns out that none of these activities affected salary in

any substantial way. The median salary was around $80K for

the respondents in each of the preferred career-development

options. The only two exceptions were “None of the above,”

which had a detrimental effect on salaries, dropping them to

$65K, and “Taking Classes in-person,” which raised the median

salary to $95K. While the salaries might be similar for the different activities,

what activities are chosen varies greatly. The most popular was

reading books (89%), followed by reading blogs (78%). O’Reilly

Media sells a lot of books, so it isn’t a surprise that reading

is high on the list, but O’Reilly also hosts conferences across many different disciplines. About half of our respondents said

they attend conferences as a way to improve their careers.

Roughly the same amount said they take online classes,

whereas about 3 out of 4 respondents said they use videos as

a source of information. Lower down the preferred list are company-sponsored trainings

(31%) and in-person classes (15%). Respondents who

prefer to take in-person classes tended to have a higher median

salary (around $95K) than any of the other career-development

options. This probably has less to do with the classes

themselves and more to do with these people’s positions

within their companies. Taking time off to attend conferences—

or finding the time to watch videos, read books, and

read blogs—can be difficult with a busy schedule, so being

instructed to attend an in-person class might be the most

viable option. Figure 12-1.

The Model in Full THE MODEL HAS R2 OF 0.587: this means the model

explains approximately 59% of the variation in the sample

salaries. The intercept has been combined with the geographical

coefficients, of which you select one. You then

proceed through the coefficients, adding or subtracting the

ones associated with a feature that applies to you. Once

you sum up the coefficients, you will obtain the model’s

estimate for your annual total salary in US dollars. GEOGRAPHY: Australia/NZ: +$65,334

Canada: +$54,658

Western Europe: +$40,831

Asia: +$27,094

Latin America: +$15,860

Africa: +$13,058

Eastern Europe: +$11,511

US California: +$113,507

US Mid Atlantic: +$92,467

US Texas: +$84,910

US Southwest/Mountain: +$84,211

US South: +$79,422

US Midwest: +$76,327 EXPERIENCE: Experience, per year: +$1,384 EDUCATION: Master’s degree: +$5,940

PhD (in addition to Master’s): +$22,014 GENDER: Female: –$6,120 TITLE: VP/Director: +$31,204

C-Level: +$20,429

Engineering manager: +$19,918

Architect/Technical lead: +$14,287

Data scientist/analyst: –$8,693 INDUSTRY: Search/Social networking: +$16,454

Banking/Finance: +$12,780

Government: –$10,323

Nonprofit/Trade Association: –$12,156

Education: –$18,459

Conclusion THIS SECOND ANNUAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPER SALARY

SURVEY garnered over 6,800 responses this year, up from

5,000 responses in 2016. While we did see a drop in median

salaries compared to last year, we also noted big changes in

the demographics of the respondents that may help explain

those declines. However, many of the trends and percentage

shares we observed last year held this year, giving us confidence

in the stability of the survey as a measurement tool. The software development survey is an open, self-selecting

survey. Respondents may not be representative of the industry

as a whole, likely reflecting the inherent biases of those familiar

with O’Reilly and engaged in some way with the content

and events that O’Reilly produces. Keep that bias in mind

when reviewing the results. If the survey results have little in

common with your own work/life experience, it’s more likely

that the survey did not capture your situation rather than your

situation being abnormal. When looking at the charts, tables, and results, remember the

data is all interconnected. Try not to focus on or optimize for

any one attribute. If C++ programmers make a higher salary

than others, simply learning that language is unlikely to lead to higher pay. The C++ programmers in the survey may have

more experience, work for larger companies, have higher

degrees, or work in a different industry than you do. Use the

survey results as a starting point for thinking about your own

career and what path (i.e., what skills, locations, roles, and responsibilities)

might work best for your goals and aspirations. Also, keep in mind that causation doesn’t mean correlation.

For example, attending more meetings, while correlated with

higher pay, is not likely to increase your salary. Focus instead

on gaining the responsibilities and roles associated with those

who attend more meetings to advance. This goes for everything

in the survey, programming languages, company size,

industry, and so on. The survey aims to provide information you can use to make

well-informed decisions regarding your career by helping you

better understand your own situation in the context of the

larger software development community. You can address

what you find most important to you, including tool choices,

work methods, culture, and compensation. We hope

the perspectives offered by the survey can assist you in such

endeavors.