The Orlando Devs Community exists to improve the quality of life of software developers in Orlando, FL. One of the ways we’re able to fulfill that mission is to share an independent annual salary survey that sheds light on the salaries of software developers of various skill levels and years of tenure in our community.

The Orlando Devs Annual Salary Survey has become an annual tradition, with 277 respondents in 2017 (a nearly 50% increase in responses compared to a higher number than our 2016 survey).

Compensation and Experience

As expected, the longer a software developer has been employed, the higher their typical salary. It is encouraging to know that our industry compensates professionals based on their experience and the contributions they bring to various industries.

The following visualization excludes some outliers, but tells the same story as above; in general, the longer you’ve been around, the more you’ll get paid.

What this means to you: The future still looks bright in our industry for both new and experienced developers.

Compensation and Gender

The following results were a pleasant surprise for all of us! Junior and mid-level female developers are earning similar salaries as their male counterparts in comparable roles! 😊

Unfortunately, the story changes in senior-level positions. Men are still getting paid more in those jobs.

What this means to you: Regardless of gender, now is a great time to get started with development.

Annual Salary By College Degree

Do developers need a college degree to do well in their careers? While this graph certainly shows that having a degree helps you earn more money throughout your career, it’s not a must. Self-taught developers aren’t far behind in average compensation.

On the y-axis, you can see which type of degree was earned and how many respondents there were for each category. For example, most of our survey respondents do not have a college degree in this field (101 people), followed by Computer Science grads (76 people), and so on.

What this means to you: If you have the opportunity, you should pursue a college degree. However, developers in our community who do not have one are still doing just fine.

Annual Salary by Primary Coding Language

Does a developer’s primary programming language have an impact on their pay? The following graph shows us that the answer is yes 🎊 🎉.

All in all, it looks like a great time to be alive for iOS developers! However, it made us wonder if higher salaries for Objective-C and Swift developers were related to the total size of the workforce. There were only 19 iOS developer respondents (Objective-C & Swift combined), whereas Java and JavaScript had 24 and 72 respondents respectively.

What this means to you: There isn’t a huge difference in pay between languages. At the end of the day, do what you enjoy, but be willing to be flexible and able to wear multiple hats.

Compensation By Satisfaction

Is there a correlation between job satisfaction and compensation? Our next visualization shows us that this seems to be the case, but not by much.

What this means to you: Although compensation seems to have some influence over how satisfied a developer is with their job, it doesn’t seem to be the only factor. Do things that interest you in your career, as that will ultimately have a bigger payout for you in the future!

Popularity of Languages and Satisfaction Amongst Age Groups

Our next chart shows us that JavaScript is the most popular programming language in our community, followed by PHP, C#, and so on.

Another interesting piece of information in this visualization is that people in the 26-30 age range are pretty unhappy no matter what they’re working on (millennials, ya know? 🙃). An exception to this are developers working in Ruby, as it seems to make all age groups happy.

What this means to you: Age appears to have some correlation to the type of development stack you’d be happier working with. While you may not yet be able to decide to be a happy 50 year-old C# developer, you may be able to avoid being an unhappy 20-something by not selecting C# as your first development stack and instead choose something more popular among your peers.

Compensation and People Management

Is it true that developers need to become managers to finally have a breakthrough in income? That does not seem to be the case in our community.

What this means to you: Managing people is rewarding in many ways, but you shouldn’t do it just for a salary increase.

Question Results

Below are the results of each question asked in this year’s developer survey.

Section 1: Developer Current Work Details (Required)

Question 1: Primary Coding Language Used

Question 2: Secondary Coding Language Used

Question 3: Primary Framework/Platform Used

Question 4: Secondary Framework/Platform Used

Question 5: Which of the following best describe you?

Question 6: Which parts of the Joel Test does your development work environment pass?

Question 7: Managers: How many direct reports do you have?

Question 8: Total number of developers at your company

Question 9: I work X hours per week on average.

Question 10: I work remotely X days per week on average.

Question 11: My employment status is:

Question 12: I am satisfied with my job.

Section 2: Developer History (Required)

Question 13: Development experience level

Question 14: I have worked for this many years as a developer:

Question 15: Educational background for development (do not count education in other disciplines, choose highest level attained):

Question 16: If you hold a traditional degree (bachelor, masters or similar) in development, please select the title most similar to your degree:

Question 17: Do you hold a degree outside the development field?

Section 3: Salary + Benefits (Required)

Question 18: Are you an hourly or salaried worker?

Question 19: I make approximately $X per YEAR (excluding overtime and bonuses):

Question 20: I am eligible for overtime pay at my job:

Question 21: The last pay increase I got was $X per YEAR (enter 0 if you have NEVER had a pay increase):

Question 22: I got my last pay increase X years ago.

Question 23: Reason for last pay increase

Question 24: The company pays for X% of my healthcare premiums:

Question 25: I have X weeks of vacation per year.

Question 26: Last year I took X weeks of vacation:

Question 27: Other benefits I have include:

Question 28: Non-monetary perks at my company include:

Section 4: Company Details (Required)

Question 29: The company I work for is best described as:

Question 30: Total number of employees at company:

Question 31: Remote workers only: Check all that apply.

Question 32: If you are working for a startup, what round are you currently in for funding?

Section 5: Demographics (optional)

Question 33: Age

Question 34: Gender

Question 35: Check all that describe you.

Question 36: I consider myself a part of the LGBTQ+ Community:

Need help?

The Orlando Devs Community exists to improve the quality of life of software developers in Orlando, FL. If any of this information was shocking to you, we’re here to help! We’re passionate about helping developers get to where they want to be in their careers, whether they’re just starting out or have been in the industry for a while.

Be sure to attend our monthly meetup, Slack channel, and take advantage of all of the other tech-related events in Orlando. Network with others in the field and ask questions. Let’s get a dialogue going!

A Big Thanks To

We’d like express how grateful we are for everyone who took the time to fill out this survey and contribute to the improvement of this community.

We’d also like to especially thank the volunteers who took the time to design the questions in the survey, compile the results, and everything else that goes into it. Below is a non-exhaustive list of people who took their time to help (sorted alphabetically):

Bryan Rosander

Byron Gardner

Devan Kestel

Jacques Fu

Jenell Pizarro

Jeremy Privett

Matt Burgess

Scott Aslan

Sergio Cruz

Susanna Miller

Got questions?

If you’d like to share other correlations we might have left out, or just want to chat about this data, please feel free to contact us:

By Twitter: @OrlandoDevs

By Email: [email protected]