Developer Salaries 2014: Show Me The Money

For the last five years, Dr. Dobb's and InformationWeek have run one of the largest independent salary surveys of US developers and their managers. As shown in the following slides, the conclusion we can draw from this year's survey is that salary increases have (by and large) matched or beaten inflation during the last year. The variations in compensation follow established patterns: Developers who are male, middle-aged, and working at large firms on the coasts tend to fare best. Developers in the South or Midwest, newbies, and women in any location tend to do less well, although software development is still a well-paying field for everyone.

The devil is in the details, so let's have a look …

The title of software engineer has little specific meaning except in Texas and a few other states which require accreditation to use the descriptor. Elsewhere, it typically refers to a programmer with lead-developer kind of skills -- the person team members go to for advice. With the amount of pressure IT departments are under to create mobile apps, cloud apps, and handle big data, these higher skilled professionals should indeed see more compensation. Likewise test engineers, as testing has become considerably more complicated and better appreciated. Compensation has grown a total of 10% for testers during the last three years -- certainly a reflection of the wider understanding of the value they deliver.

Read the rest of this story on Dr. Dobb's.