I hate those salary survey sites. They never seem to have any correlation to reality, and both companies and candidates seem to find the ammunition/data to back up whatever their objective is. Candidates tend to use it to justify their assumption that they can get a $50,000 raise and companies use it to justify that they can get a $100,000 person for $70,000. Which serves nobody, because it’s not how things work in reality.
Here are real numbers, locally focused to Los Angeles, based on a sampling of actual offers in the year 2011. Keep in mind that our niche is startups/internet companies/mid-sized high growth, and that is the source of these figures. There are always exceptions to every rule and guideline, so of course, companies might luck out and get a superstar for less and candidates may get that 50k raise, but expectations of that will slow down the hiring process.
Software Engineering (hands on to VP level)
- Manager, Software Engineering, Opensource (hands on manager) – B2C – 150k + options
- VP, Engineering, Java – B2B – 180k + equity.
- C# Technical Lead – web consulting firm – 110k + bonus
- Sr. Java Engineer – B2B – 120k + bonus
- Intermediate Java Engineer – B2C – 105k + bonus + options
- Mid-Level LAMP Developer – B2C – 80k + bonus
- VP, Engineering, C# – B2C – 180k + bonus + equity
- Sr. C# Engineer – SaaS B2B – 125k + bonus
- Jr. C# (1-2 years) – Midsized utilities firm – 75k
- Mid-Level Java Engineer – B2B – 95k + bonus
- iOS Developer/Architect – B2C – 125k + bonus + options +partial telecommute
- Technical Lead, Opensource (hands on) – B2C – 125k + options
- Data Warehouse Engineer – B2C – 115k + bonus + options
- Intermediate Front End Engineer (OO JavaScript) – B2C – 85k + bonus
Infrastructure
- Sr. MySQL DBA – B2B – 110k + bonus
- Jr. MySQL DBA – B2B – 85k + bonus
- Intermediate-level Linux Admin (no Cloud) – B2B – 80k + bonus + options
- Sr. Linux (very light Cloud) – B2B – 110k + bonus + options
- Sr. Windows Admin – B2B/B2C – 95k + bonus
- SQL Server Architect/DBA – B2B – 125k + bonus
Management (Project, Product, Professional Services)
- Project Manager – B2C – 100k + options
- Director, Applications – B2C – 145k + options
- Manager, Product Management (hands on) – B2C, 90k + bonus
- Sr. Product Manager – B2C – 110k + bonus
- Program Manager – web services firm – 120k + bonus
- Director, Professional Services – SaaS – 150k + bonus + options
Q/A
- QA Engineer – web services firm – 95k + bonus
- QA Lead (hands on) – B2C – 105k + options
As mentioned, this is just a sampling/cross-section. If you have specific questions about reasonable compensation for a particular role, please contact me at jdavis@fetchrecruiting.com – happy to tell you what I’m seeing out there.