As a technical director for the SCEA Santa Monica studio I do a lot of interviewing and, to a lesser degree, hiring of programmers for the God of War team. At some point during any hiring process the issue of salary inevitably comes up — as it should. Often that bit is painless and company and candidate will find an offer that makes both parties happy. Occasionally, though, there will be a difference in what someone is asking and what a company is willing to pay. There are several reasons this can happen, but one particular reason I wanted to address through this post: a lack of knowledge of prevailing wages in the industry on behalf of the candidate.

Today, there really is no reason for people to not have a reasonably good idea of prevailing wages in our industry based on the resources out there. Some of them you might know about, but some you might not.

[SCEA job links deleted — all jobs filled!]

Friends and industry forums

When it comes to statistical data there’s two (three?) key things to care about: strength in numbers, and fairness and accuracy in reporting. Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, people usually first turn to friends and industry forums for salary information. For example, on The ChaosEngine (an industry-only forum) you can find salaries discussed in the North America Programmer Salary Poll and Salary Amnesty threads. I say “interestingly” because I’m not sure I’d really recommend these sources, certainly not as a single data point. The sampling is limited, you often don’t get an accurate job title posted with the salary data point, there are sampling biases, etc. All these issues compound to make extrapolation from the given data points hard, if not impossible.

Job and salary websites

You can also turn to dedicated job and salary websites for information. Unfortunately, few of these provide effective means of filtering for the games industry. For example, Glassdoor seems of limited value (right now), perhaps unless you’re looking at working for Electronic Arts. At the time of writing they list 73 salaries for Electronic Arts, 10 for Activision, 5 for THQ, 2 for SCEA, 1 for Take-Two, and that seems about it. Salary.com seems completely useless; it doesn’t seem to know any of the terms “games programmer”, “tools programmer”, “graphics programmer” or similar. Better is indeed where you get hits for all three terms along with some suggested salary ranges, based on ranges given in some of the job ads. And speaking of ranges given in the job ads, another place to look is at the various job posting places, like e.g. CreativeHeads.net where you can find ads like this one for a tools programmer in El Segundo for $80-110K, or CyberCoders where you’ll see e.g. a search for graphics programmers return a listing for Boston, MA, in the range $60K-120K. Dice is another site that lists game development jobs, sometimes with salary ranges.

The Game Industry Salary Survey

Quite accurate (based on statistical significance, and match with H-1B data given below) is the Game Industry Salary Survey that is conducted by Game Developer / Gamasutra / CMP Media every year (for several years in a row now). It’s people like you and me who contribute data points to this survey, and the more industry people who contribute the more accurate it gets. A summarized version of the data is released for free online. If you want the full survey you have to pay CMP Media quite a bit of money, sadly.

For 2008, 2007, and 2006, the Game Industry Salary Survey has that programmers, on average, are making this much in salary:

(2008) <3 years 3-6 years >6 years Programmer/engineer $57,665 $75,070 $94,525 Lead programmer $75,761 $77,418 $103,409 Technical director $80,833 $111,250 $128,676

(2007) <3 years 3-6 years >6 years Programmer/engineer $57,913 $74,707 $88,841 Lead programmer $73,311 $80,132 $98,152 Technical director N/A $91,944 $119,142

(2006) <3 years 3-6 years >6 years Programmer/engineer $52,989 $73,618 $90,658 Lead programmer $76,848 $81,591 $100,528 Technical director N/A $107,738 $121,071

If you’re not a programmer, follow the links above and see the salaries listed for other job categories (sorry, but this is a programming blog after all).

The one thing you don’t get with this survey is access to individual data points. You also don’t get a breakdown per region, or any number of other type of reports that could be interesting. (The full report probably has many of these, but who wants to pay lots of money for that? Not me.)

Salary information from the H-1B database

Well, guess what, turns out you can create your own little survey, with data points from the H-1B Data Disclosure website! There anyone can download the “H-1B Efile Data” (or “H-1B Fax Data”) applications for the years 2002-2007. (Before you do, though, a warning: these are massive files and not easy to comb through. I downloaded the 2007 Efile text file, which is 30MB, but uncompresses to a 143MB(!) text file.) The Efile text file contains something like over 90% of all issued H-1B visas for the year, with information about the company applying for the visa, what the position is, how much salary is offered, etc. A gold mine for the statistics buff.

Thanks goes to the blogger at the Casually Hardcore devlog for alerting us to the existence of the H-1B database!

As I said, I downloaded the 2007 data and mined it for game company entries. I’m not sure I got them all, but I got a decent sampling. Specifically, in 2007, across 28 CA games (and film/graphics) companies, I got that the average programmer salary across all applications was $87K. The average for senior programmers was $103K, and for lead programmers $109K. Note how this data matches fairly well with the Game Industry Salary Survey, especially considering that programmers brought in on visas are often of above-average skill (otherwise, why bother).

The table below shows the programmer salary data I extracted. (Note: to compile the data I had to convert some entries giving hourly and weekly salaries to yearly salaries, which I did by multiplying by 37.5*52 and 52, respectively. This will have affected the data somewhat, but likely not significantly).

Employer Work city State Job title Wage Capcom Entertainment San Mateo CA Engineering Manager $160,000 High Moon Studios Carlsbad CA Technical Director $155,300 SCEA Foster City CA Senior Staff Software Engineer $142,050 LucasArts San Francisco CA Lead Engineer $140,000 SCEA Foster City CA Senior Software Engineer $138,100 Activision Publishing Santa Monica CA Senior Programmer Analyst $130,000 Zipper Interactive Redmond WA Software Manager $130,000 Pixar Emeryville CA Software Engineer (Image Mastering SWEng) $125,008 Midway Amusement Games Chicago IL Senior Software Engineer $125,000 Rockstar San Diego Carlsbad CA Lead Programmer $125,000 SCEA Foster City CA Staff Compiler Engineer $123,900 id Software Mesquite TX Programmer $123,670 Disney Interactive Studios Burbank/Glendale CA Technology Director $121,500 Digital Domain Venice CA Senior Software Engineer $120,000 LucasArts San Francisco CA Senior Core Engineer $120,000 Rockstar San Diego Carlsbad CA Lead Programmer $120,000 Rockstar San Diego Carlsbad CA Lead Programmer $120,000 SCEA Foster City CA Senior Developer Support Engineer $118,400 Backbone Entertainment Newport Beach CA Lead Rendering Programmer $118,359 Sony Online Entertainment San Diego CA Senior Programmer $117,683 Sony Online Entertainment San Diego CA Senior Programmer $117,683 Visual Concepts Entertainment Novato CA Senior Software Engineer $117,495 SCEA Foster City CA Software Engineer $117,450 SCEA Foster City CA Senior Software Engineer $115,800 Electronic Arts Redwood City CA Software Engineer $114,275 SCEA Foster City CA Senior Software Engineer $114,000 Crystal Dynamics Redwood City CA Programmer $113,300 Naughty Dog Santa Monica CA Software Research Engineer (Games Software) $113,200 Crystal Dynamics Redwood City CA Senior Programmer $111,200 Visual Concepts Entertainment Novato CA Software Engineer $110,770 Activision Publishing Santa Monica CA Software Engineer – Game Design $110,000 DreamWorks Animation Redwood City CA Senior Software Engineer $110,000 LucasArts San Francisco CA Senior Software Engineer $110,000 LucasArts San Francisco CA Senior Software Engineer $110,000 SCEA San Diego CA Computer Scientist $110,000 Electronic Arts Redwood City CA Technical Director $109,054 SCEA Foster City CA Staff Software Engineer $108,846 SCEA Foster City CA Staff Software Engineer $108,846 Electronic Arts Redwood City CA Senior Artificial Intelligence Engineer $107,133 Rockstar San Diego Carlsbad CA Lead Programmer $106,000 Rockstar San Diego Carlsbad CA Programmer $106,000 Activision Publishing Santa Monica CA Programmer Analyst $105,000 Factor 5 San Rafael CA Senior Software Engineer $105,000 Vivendi Games Los Angeles CA 11i Development Manager $104,500 Vivendi Games Los Angeles CA 11i Development Manager $104,500 Vivendi Games Los Angeles CA Applications Development Manager $104,500 Electronic Arts Redwood City CA Senior Software Engineer $104,247 Electronic Arts Redwood City CA Software Engineer $104,247 Electronic Arts Redwood City CA Software Engineer $104,247 PDI/DreamWorks Glendale CA Production Engineer $103,430 SCEA Foster City CA Senior Software Engineer $103,050 SCEA Foster City CA Senior Software Engineer $103,000 Midway Studios-Austin Austin TX Lead Gameplay Programmer $102,500 Midway Studios-Austin Austin TX Lead Gameplay Programmer $102,500 NAMCO BANDAI Games America San Jose CA Software Engineer $102,500 Left Field Productions Ventura CA Software Engineer $101,972 Page 44 Studios San Francisco CA Computer Software Engineer $100,420 Page 44 Studios San Francisco CA Computer Software Engineer $100,420 PDI/DreamWorks Redwood City CA Production Engineer $100,000 DreamWorks Animation Glendale CA Senior Software Engineer $100,000 LucasArts San Francisco CA Senior Gameplay Engineer $100,000 NAMCO BANDAI Games America Santa Clara CA Software Engineer $100,000 Naughty Dog Santa Monica CA Senior Programmer $100,000 Obsidian Entertainment Santa Ana CA Computer Software Engineer $100,000 Rockstar San Diego Carlsbad CA Programmer 4 $100,000 SCEA San Diego CA Software Engineer $100,000 THQ Kirkland CA Senior Software Engineer $100,000 Vivendi Games Los Angeles CA Associate Technical Director $100,000 Neversoft Entertainment Woodland Hills CA Senior Artificial Intelligence Programmer $99,144 SCEA Foster City CA Senior Software Engineer $99,000 Activision Publishing Santa Monica CA Programmer Analyst $98,800 SCEA San Diego CA Software Engineer $98,150 Activision Publishing Santa Monica CA Senior Software Engineer $98,000 Midway Amusement Games Chicago IL Programmer $98,000 Sony Online Entertainment San Diego CA Senior Software Engineer $98,000 DreamWorks Animation Glendale CA Senior Software Engineer $97,958 Electronic Arts Emeryville CA Software Engineer $97,906 Electronic Arts Emeryville CA Software Engineer $97,906 Electronic Arts Emeryville CA Software Engineer $97,365 Electronic Arts Redwood City CA Software Engineer (Software Engineer III) $97,365 Z-AXIS Ltd (Activision) Foster City CA Senior Software Engineer $97,365 Retro Studios Austin TX Senior Software Engineer $95,940 Visual Concepts Entertainment Novato CA Software Engineer $95,025 DreamWorks Animation Glendale CA Software Engineer $95,006 DreamWorks Animation Glendale CA Software Engineer $95,000 DreamWorks Animation Redwood City CA Production Engineer $94,500 High Moon Studios Carlsbad CA Senior Programmer $94,500 SCEA Foster City CA Software Engineer $94,400 SCEA San Diego CA Software Engineer $94,400 LucasArts San Francisco CA AI Engineer $93,000 Electronic Arts Chicago CA Software Engineer $92,099 Electronic Arts Chicago CA Software Engineer $92,099 Electronic Arts Chicago CA Software Engineer $92,099 Electronic Arts Chicago CA Software Engineer $92,099 Activision Publishing Middleton CA Software Engineer $92,000 Midway Studios – Los Angeles Moorpark CA Online Game Programmer $92,000 Retro Studios Austin TX Software Engineer $92,000 Neversoft Entertainment Woodland Hills CA Project Programmer $91,584 id Software Mesquite TX Programmer $90,000 LucasArts San Francisco CA Software Engineer $90,000 Naughty Dog Santa Monica CA Senior Programmer $90,000 Page 44 Studios San Francisco CA Computer Software Engineer $90,000 Pixar Emeryville CA Software Engineer (Technical Director) $90,000 Secret Level San Francisco CA Tools Programmer $90,000 THQ Los Angeles CA Senior Programmer $90,000 Electronic Arts Redwood City CA Programmer Analyst $88,569 Backbone Entertainment Newport Beach CA Lead Rendering Programmer $88,000 Nintendo of America Redmond WA Senior Programmer/Analyst $88,000 Visual Concepts Entertainment Novato CA Software Engineer $87,975 Apogee Software Campbell CA Software Engineer $87,006 Apogee Software Campbell CA Software Engineer $85,000 LucasArts San Francisco CA Computer Programmer $85,000 LucasArts San Francisco CA Gameplay/Artificial Intelligence Engineer $85,000 Naughty Dog Santa Monica CA Senior Programmer $85,000 NCsoft Corporation Austin TX Tools Engineer $85,000 Retro Studios Austin TX Software Engineer $85,000 SCEA Foster City CA Developer Support Engineer $85,000 SCEA Foster City CA Developer Support Engineer $85,000 The Collective Newport Beach CA Computer Systems Analyst (Sr. Maya Prg) $85,000 THQ Moorpark CA Senior Software Engineer $85,000 Zipper Interactive Redmond WA Software Engineer $85,000 Zipper Interactive Redmond WA Software Engineer $85,000 Pixar Emeryville CA Software Engineer (Technical Director) $84,942 Electronic Arts Tiburon Orlando CA Software Engineer III $84,698 Electronic Arts Redwood City CA Programmer/Analyst $84,240 Electronic Arts Redwood City CA Software Engineer $84,240 Electronic Arts Redwood City CA Software Engineer (Senior Lead Online Dev) $84,240 SCEA Foster City CA Software Engineer $83,600 Electronic Arts Redwood City CA Software Engineer $83,512 Electronic Arts Redwood City CA Software Engineer $83,512 Sanzaru Games San Mateo CA Senior Engineer $83,512 Sanzaru Games San Mateo CA Senior Engineer $83,512 WildTangent Redmond WA Senior Software Engineer $83,500 SCEA Foster City CA Software Engineer $83,440 Nintendo of America Redmond WA Senior Bilingual Software Engineer $83,242 Valve Corporation Bellevue WA Software Engineer $83,242 Valve Corporation Bellevue WA Software Engineer $83,242 Activision Publishing Santa Monica CA Software Engineer $82,900 SCEA Foster City CA Software Engineer $82,400 Z-AXIS Ltd (Activision) Foster City CA Senior Software Engineer $81,890 Electronic Arts Orlando CA Software Engineer $81,471 Activision Publishing San Francisco CA Systems Analyst – Product Development $81,000 Electronic Arts Playa Vista CA Software Engineer $80,925 Nintendo Software Tech Corp Redmond WA Engineering Specialist $80,450 Kush Games Camarillo CA Software Engineer $80,000 LucasArts San Francisco CA Gameplay Engineer $80,000 Rockstar San Diego Carlsbad CA Programmer $80,000 SCEA San Diego CA Software Engineer $80,000 Electronic Arts Tiburon Orlando CA Software Engineer $79,404 Sennari Entertainment Cupertino CA Software Engineer – Lead Programmer $79,000 Electronic Arts Redwood City CA Senior Software Engineer $78,293 Electronic Arts Redwood City CA Software Engineer $78,293 Kush Games Camarillo CA Software Engineer $76,000 Visual Concepts Entertainment Novato CA Software Engineer $75,490 Arete Seven (dba Bungie) Kirkland WA Software Development Engineer $75,000 Arete Seven (dba Bungie) Kirkland WA Software Development Engineer $75,000 DreamWorks Animation Glendale CA Software Engineer $75,000 DreamWorks Animation Glendale CA Software Engineer $75,000 Firaxis Games Hunt Valley MD Software Engineer – Gaming Systems $75,000 Activision Publishing Albany CA Programmer Analyst $74,900 High Impact Games Los Angeles CA Game Programmer $74,000 High Impact Games Los Angeles CA Game Programmer $74,000 Electronic Arts Emeryville CA Software Engineer (Audio Software Engineer) $73,278 Gas Powered Games Corporation Redmond WA Graphics Engineer (PC) $72,500 Red Storm Entertainment Morrisville NC AI Engineer $72,000 Vicarious Visions Menands NY Game Programmer $71,470 Arete Seven (dba Bungie) Kirkland WA AI Programmer $70,000 Arete Seven (dba Bungie) Kirkland WA Artificial Intelligence Programmer $70,000 Idol Minds Louisville CO Senior Games Programmer $70,000 Kush Games Camarillo CA Software Engineer $70,000 LucasArts San Francisco CA UI Interface Engineer $70,000 THQ Carrollton CA Software Engineer $70,000 Electronic Arts Redwood City CA Software Engineer $69,700 Electronic Arts Playa Vista CA Software Engineer $69,362 Electronic Arts Playa Vista CA Software Engineer $69,362 Electronic Arts Tiburon Orlando CA Software Engineer $68,543 Pixar Emeryville CA Software Engineer $67,600 Pixar Emeryville CA Software Engineer (Technical Director) $67,600 Activision Publishing Albany CA Software Engineer $66,200 Activision Publishing Santa Monica CA Software Engineer $66,000 Electronic Arts Redwood City CA Software Engineer $65,325 Electronic Arts Redwood City CA Software Engineer $65,325 Electronic Arts Redwood City CA Software Engineer $65,325 Electronic Arts Redwood City CA Software Engineer $65,325 Arete Seven (dba Bungie) Kirkland WA Game Designer $65,000 Blue Heat Games Atlanta GA Lead Programmer $65,000 High Impact Games N Hollywood CA Computer Systems Analyst $65,000 High Moon Studios Carlsbad CA Associate Programmer $65,000 Obsidian Entertainment Santa Ana CA Software Engineer $65,000 Pixar Emeryville CA Software Engineer (Technical Director) $65,000 Sony Online Entertainment San Diego CA Computer Systems Engineer $65,000 High Impact Games N Hollywood CA Computer Systems Analyst $62,000 Nintendo Software Tech Corp Redmond WA Engineering Specialist (Software Engineer) $61,300 Electronic Arts Chicago CA Software Developer $60,606 Midway Amusement Games Chicago IL Software Engineer $60,000 Obsidian Entertainment Santa Ana CA Software Engineer $60,000 Raven Software Solutions Jacksonville FL Software Engineer $60,000 Raven Software Solutions Jacksonville FL Software Engineer $60,000 Ready At Dawn Studios Santa Ana CA Software Engineer $58,000 Ready At Dawn Studios Santa Ana CA Software Engineer $58,000 THQ Los Angeles CA Software Engineer $57,803 Electronic Arts Tiburon Orlando CA Software Engineer $57,701 THQ Kirkland CA Software Engineer $57,000 High Voltage Software Hoffman Estates IL Software Engineer $56,000 Activision Publishing Albany CA Software Engineer $55,000 Kush Games Camarillo CA Software Engineer $55,000 Kush Games Camarillo CA Software Engineer – Games $55,000 Raven Software Solutions Jacksonville FL Software Engineer $55,000 Raven Software Solutions Jacksonville FL Software Engineer $55,000 Visual Concepts Entertainment Novato CA Software Engineer (Game Tools) $55,000 Visual Concepts Entertainment Novato CA Software Programming Engineer $55,000 Realtime Associates El Segundo CA Computer Programmer $53,500 SCEA Austin CA Software Engineer $52,374 Big Fish Games Seattle WA Software Development Engineer in Test $52,250 Electronic Arts Chicago CA Software Engineer $51,071 THQ Moorpark CA Programmer $51,000 Insomniac Games Burbank CA Associate Gameplay Programmer $50,050 Idol Minds Louisville CO Games Programmer $50,000 Kush Games Camarillo CA Computer Programmer $50,000 THQ Los Angeles CA Game Programmer $50,000 Papaya Studio Irvine CA Game Programmer $48,000 Electronic Arts Tiburon Orlando CA Software Engineer $46,839 THQ Los Angeles CA Game Programmer $45,000 THQ Los Angeles CA Software Engineer $45,000 Electronic Arts Bountiful CA Software Engineer $42,588 Papaya Studio Irvine CA Game Programmer $38,000

Again, sorry, the table above is just the programmer data. That said, here’s a zipped Excel file containing all the 2007 H-1B game developer data I was able to mine from the 2007 Efile, including data for artists, designers, producers, programmers, as well as a few other odd professions (e.g. a “supply chain analyst” at Activision). Hourly and weekly salaries have not been converted to yearly salaries in this file. Playing around with Excel on this file could help you answer, say, if people in Northern CA are paid more or less than people in Southern CA, or any other question you’d like to pose.

I was going to do the same for the Efiles for previous years to get a larger pool of data, but ran out of steam. It would be cool if someone actually bothered to do it (and post a link here). To mine the file I basically just “grepped” the text file for known game company names (from a big list of company names) and then manually cleaned up the resulting file.

Summary

I don’t really have much more to add at this point, other than that I hope this information is useful to you. If you have any other good (reliable) sources, please post them in the comments. Oh, actually, sorry to end on a bum note, but do remember that not every programmer is top talent and will command top dollar. Assuming a gaussian distribution (which seems reasonable), roughly half of all programmers are below average. Make sure you’re not one of them before you start demanding a higher salary based on this data!