The average worker expects a 3% raise each year, and that’s what they typically get. But not all jobs are created equal – in fact, some workers in tech are averaging surprising gains.
Using its extensive database of salary records, Comparably found out which tech job titles garner the biggest jumps in salary over time. The results were calculated using the average salary for a single job title for workers with 1 to 3 years’ experience, 3 to 6 years’ experience, and 6 to 10 years’ experience. (Full methodology below.) Comparably also analyzed the overall compensation trends for these positions by gender, ethnicity, and location.
The results come from the salary records of more than 10,000 workers at small, mid-size, and large public and private U.S. tech companies. The data was collected between March 2016 and September 2017. All salaries are averages unless otherwise noted.
The winners
| 1-3 years’ experience | 3-6 years’ experience | 6-10 years’ experience | Overall salary increase | |
| Sales Representative | $80,845 | $108,148 | $126,010 | 55.9% |
| Sales Engineer | $98,020 | $124,633 | $141,730 | 44.6% |
| Operations Manager | $69,280 | $85,466 | $99,034 | 43% |
| Project Manager | $77,375 | $89,190 | $101,352 | 31% |
| QA | $72,052 | $84,222 | $93,575 | 30% |
| IT Support Engineer | $61,750 | $70,355 | $78,013 | 26% |
| Customer Service Manager | $60,555 | $69,216 | $74,942 | 23.8% |
| DevOps | $93,749 | $107,960 | $114,654 | 22.3% |
| Business Analyst | $72,958 | $84,536 | $88,850 | 21.8% |
| System Administrator | $68,394 | $74,664 | $82,533 | 20.7% |
— Sales representatives saw the biggest bump, with salaries rising nearly 56% between workers with 1-3 years’ experience and workers with 6-10 years’ experience.
— Of the group, sales engineers have the highest average salary across the board.
— Overall increase is the percent change between “1-3 years” and “6-10 years” experience.
A closer look
| 1-3 years’ experience | 3-6 years’ experience | Salary increase | |
| Sales Representative | $80,845 | $108,148 | 33.8% |
| Sales Engineer | $98,020 | $124,633 | 27.2% |
| Operations Manager | $69,280 | $85,466 | 23.4% |
| QA | $72,052 | $84,222 | 16.9% |
| Business Analyst | $72,958 | $84,536 | 15.9% |
| Project Manager | $77,375 | $89,190 | 15.3% |
| 3-6 years’ experience | 6-10 years’ experience | Salary increase | |
| Sales Representative | $108,148 | $126,010 | 16.5% |
| Operations Manager | $85,466 | $99,034 | 15.9% |
| Sales Engineer | $124,633 | $141,730 | 13.7% |
| Project Manager | $89,190 | $101,352 | 13.6% |
| QA | $84,222 | $93,575 | 11.1% |
| IT Support Engineer | $70,355 | $78,013 | 10.9% |
— For the most part, workers saw a bigger percentage salary increase when going from 1-3 years to 3-6 years’ experience than they did between 3-6 years and 6-10 years’ experience. For instance, the average salary for a sales engineer rose 27.2% from 1-3 to 3-6 years’ experience, but rose just 13.7% between 3-6 years and 6-10 years’ experience.
Compensation by gender
| Women | Men | |
| Sales Engineer | $124,898 | $144,116 |
| IT Support Engineer | $124,540 | $134,292 |
| DevOps | $107,663 | $115,923 |
| Project Manager | $101,937 | $106,046 |
| Sales Representative | $93,000 | $114,616 |
| Operations Manager | $87,453 | $95,885 |
| Business Analyst | $81,439 | $83,836 |
| System Administrator | $80,622 | $84,241 |
| QA | $79,787 | $87,348 |
| Customer Service Manager | $65,495 | $74,344 |
— On average, women earned less than men in every role. Figures include workers of all ages, ethnicities, locations, and experience levels.
Compensation by ethnicity
| African American | Hispanic/Latino | Asian/Pacific Islander | Caucasian | |
| Business Analyst | $77,550 | $78,843 | $89,761 | $81,735 |
| Customer Service Mgr. | $57,167 | $73,027 | $84,514 | $71,186 |
| DevOps | $108,058 | $111,620 | $118,518 | $114,342 |
| IT Support Engineer | $128,424 | $131,077 | $140,784 | $131,443 |
| Operations Manager | $82,157 | $93,939 | $114,562 | $90,378 |
| Project Manager | $99,209 | $102,013 | $114,937 | $103,084 |
| QA | $84,470 | $80,699 | $90,648 | $81,090 |
| Sales Engineer | $134,995 | $126,461 | $147,025 | $142,765 |
| Sales Representative | $82,560 | $91,385 | $115,487 | $115,835 |
| System Administrator | $81,162 | $83,038 | $95,471 | $82,188 |
— African Americans earned the lowest salaries overall while Asian Americans and Caucasians earned the highest. Figures include workers of all genders, ages, locations, and experience levels.
Compensation by location
| San Francisco | Los Angeles | Austin | Seattle | Chicago | New York City | Boston | |
| Business Analyst | $101,938 | $85,684 | $81,321 | $87,240 | $77,782 | $86,826 | $77,562 |
| Customer Service Manager | $85,086 | $71,040 | $70,661 | $69,777 | $66,771 | $70,932 | $76,940 |
| DevOps | $141,998 | $127,272 | $115,946 | $128,637 | $108,315 | $127,429 | $116,191 |
| IT Support Engineer | $157,321 | $136,200 | $130,413 | $148,472 | $118,599 | $137,323 | $126,520 |
| Operations Manager | $118,487 | $93,506 | $91,653 | $112,777 | $87,891 | $88,015 | $89,710 |
| Project Manager | $119,889 | $105,078 | $96,494 | $116,546 | $107,805 | $109,292 | $109,437 |
| QA | $106,781 | $84,409 | $81,143 | $97,820 | $74,095 | $84,324 | $81,313 |
| Sales Engineer | $153,490 | $126,066 | $133,726 | $139,395 | $137,620 | $155,022 | $143,492 |
| Sales Rep. | $126,521 | $105,540 | $110,365 | $118,557 | $110,890 | $119,374 | $122,235 |
| System Admin. | $107,672 | $84,847 | $87,695 | $83,080 | $84,885 | $94,210 | $93,005 |
— Workers in every role earned the highest compensation in San Francisco, with the exception of sales engineers in New York City ($155,022). Figures include workers of all genders, ages, ethnicities, and experience levels.
Methodology
— The results were compiled from the anonymous salary insights of 10,510 employees across the tech sector between March 2016 and September 2017.
— A job had to have at least 1,000 salary records on Comparably to be included, at least half of which were for workers with 1-10 years of experience.
— This study does not account for changes in job title. The analysis was done on singular job titles that were fairly represented by workers across three experience levels (1-3 years, 3-6 years, 6-10 years).
— To ensure that no job on the list be unfairly skewed toward workers with more experience, a job title had to have at least 20% of its salary records from workers with 1 to 3 years’ experience and no more than 42% of its salary records in any one experience level. This ensures that each job title is adequately represented by workers of varying experience.
— Employees hail from small, mid-size, and large tech companies (VC-funded, privately-held, and public) to household brands like Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, Uber, etc.
— The salaries displayed are averages unless otherwise indicated.
About Comparably
Comparably is one of the fastest growing compensation, culture, and career monitoring sites in the U.S. With a mission to make work dramatically more transparent and rewarding, it is the only platform with comprehensive and structured data that can be segmented by gender, ethnicity, age, location, tenure, company size, equity, title/department, and education. Since the Santa Monica-based startup’s launch in March 2016, the site has become a popular resource for employees to anonymously input and compare salaries, rate their workplace culture and CEOs, and have their dream jobs find them. With more than 1 million ratings and hundreds of thousands of salary and culture data, over 3,000 companies are now using Comparably’s employer branding and jobs tools to recruit talent. For more information, please visit www.comparably.com.
