Software Engineering Salary & Equity101

Getting your hands on good compensation data can be tough. Many companies pay for this information via compensation databases like Pave and Option Impact, and then that same data is not typically available to candidates. 

We’ve aggregated a few of our favorite links and resources from around the web in this blog post. Keep in mind that these are just general ranges and actual salaries can vary depending on the company, location, and your own experience level.

Salaries

Ranges we see in the Leopard network (many of our clients use Pave): 

Glassdoor’s software engineering salary averages 2023, by level: 

Additional good sources of compensation data online:

• Hired’s Salary Calculator is the most accurate interactive data source we’ve found online for Series A-Pre IPO Tech Company roles
• Levels.FYI always has really great coverage of 1000+ employee companies, but the data is less in depth for smaller companies 
• AngelList (Now Wellfound) has some decent salary data for early stage companies, but it skews low on base (I wouldn’t use it for Series B+)
• WeWorkRemotely lists remote engineering salaries, but those are also lower than what we see at CA/NY based tech companies

Equity:

We really like referring candidates to use Leo Polovets’s 2014 analysis of AngelList job listing equity grants. These were meant to be stretch goals rather than standard, but we think they’re worth bringing into negotiations:

Some Additional Resources We Recommend:

• Good Guide for figuring out “How Senior Am I?” (by Exponent)
• Software Engineer Pay Gap Breakdown By Seniority (by Quantic Dev)

Lastly, if you’re unfamiliar with how pay bands work and want to learn more, these articles should give you a good overview:

• How Companies Design Internal Engineering Pay Bands (by OneSignal)
• An Inside Look at Pollen’s Engineering Pay Bands (by Gergely Orosz) 
• Another Example of Transparent Salary Bands (by Buffer) 

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