November 01, 2005
Salary Survey 2005: Holding PatternAlexandra Weber Morales
Little has changed in the last year, according to our eighth annual examination of compensation and satisfaction trends for software developers. Salaries have increased by a hair, and most other job measures are dormant or just budding.The one bright spot? The continued growth of head-hunting.
Developers are getting older and wiser—slightly. Though of arguable significance, there's no denying that the average age has increased in the 2005 Software Development Salary and Job Satisfaction Survey of nearly 3,500 U.S. software engineers and technical managers.
The current mean age is 41 years old—two years grayer than the average in 2000. Similarly, the number of years' experience has increased from a mean 13 in 2000 to 16 this year. Respondents have been with their current employer an average of seven years, and most expect to stay another four. As in previous years, 90% of respondents are male.
Salaries have risen in 2005—again, slightly. While respondents claim receiving an average 5% raise this year, a comparison of 2005 and 2004 base salaries shows raises in the 3% range or lower. The average staff salary in 2005 was $82,000, compared to $80,000 last year. The average manager salary this year was $100,000, compared to $99,000 last year. The median bonus was $1,000 for staff, $4,000 for managers. And it's not a bad living: Total cash compensation for respondents was $95,000 overall, or $87,000 for staff and $111,000 for managers. That's quite a bit higher than the August 2005 report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The National Compensation Survey shows an average hourly wage of $35 for computer scientists, which can be extrapolated to an annual salary of $67,000—or equal to the figure Software Development encountered at the 25th percentile salary level for staff. That puts developers ahead of mechanical and industrial engineers and architects, but behind nuclear, aerospace, petroleum, electrical and chemical engineers.
Over the past eight years, the survey has shown little change in job and compensation satisfaction levels. Consistently, less than 4% are very dissatisfied, 14% are dissatisfied, 23% are neutral, 43% are satisfied and 16% are very satisfied. Sixty-four percent say the challenge of their job is what matters most to them—but 55% say a flexible work schedule is crucial. Headhunter contacts continue to rise after the recession: While 39% of respondents said they'd been called by an employment recruiter last year, that figure rose to 45% this year. It's a promising sign, though not likely to soon rival 2000's high of 69%. While most (63%) aren't looking for a new job, those who are increasingly cite offshore outsourcing as a reason: This year, 9% say it's a factor in their job search, up from 3% last year.
Foreign-Born Developers In the last decade, much attention has focused on whether American-born students are entering computer science with the alacrity of their immigrant counterparts. At the same time, the ability to attract the world's top technical talent is a crucial component of the U.S.'s competitive advantage. According to an August 2004 study by the American Immigration Law Foundation by Rob Paral and Benjamin Johnson, while immigrants comprise 11 percent of the overall population, they make up 17 percent of the 7 million scientists and engineers in the U.S. The report's findings coincide with Software Development's results for IT professionals: Eighteen percent, or 607, were born outside of the U.S., up from 15% in 2004. This number has fluctuated slightly since 2001, the first year the question was asked. That year, 16% were foreign-born; in 2002, 13%; and in 2003, 17%. Nearly one-third (30%) of managers with the title of software architect are foreign-born, comprising the highest proportion in the survey. The lowest percentage of non-native respondents (8%) is found among staff database analysts. In education levels, foreign-born developers tend to hold higher credentials: Thirteen percent of native-born developers hold a master's degree in computer science, compared to 26% of foreign-born developers; 16% hold a master's degree in any subject, compared to 10% of natives; and twice as many hold Ph.D.s (7% vs. 3%).
Fewer respondents are working on H-1B visas in 2005: 2%, compared to last year's 5%. The percentage has dropped from the highs of 9% and 7% in 2000 and 2001, respectively. So where are these foreigners from? Discounting the confused handful who wrote "United States" as their place of foreign birth, most hail from the United Kingdom, Canada, China, India, Taiwan, Russia and the Philippines. Vietnam, Israel, Brazil, Mexico and Guatemala represented a surprising, if small, number of respondents—and the remainder came from every continent on the planet.
Top Tools For this question, respondents were encouraged to write in their favorite tools, generating a plethora of responses including XML editing tools, HL7 profiling tools, Wiki and other group collaboration aids, Internet relay chat, usability testing tools such as Camtasia and Morae, UI simulators, time managers, ticket/workflow managers, network monitors, knowledge managers, graphics tools, business process modelers, automated build tools and the longtime editing favorite, Emacs. But one respondent took the time to point out, "None are ESSENTIAL."
Top Technical Skills
As always, the write-in suggestions for skills are good for inspiration—and a few laughs. One respondent advises, "Extremely specialized skills—for example, 15 years creating Linux kernel drivers for MPEG-2 data streams sent of GRPS and CDMA cellular networks (Even though the technologies are only 5 years old)." Another writes, "Business process discovery—most of the time the business doesn't know WHAT it's doing!" More helpful advice: "Big Picture," "anything Web" and quite a few votes for agile methods in one form or another. Thinking outside the box, some suggest "Read, Write, Think, Do," or "Intelligence, resourcefulness, creativity." Communication in all its forms is the most popular write-in skill—spoken, written, interpersonal, team-wide, company-wide and language-specific (though mastery of English predominated, minor attention was paid to Russian and Mandarin). On the humorous side are the following tidbits: "Under age 30 else overqualified," and the priceless "Ability to speak Indian or Chinese."
Languages and Technologies Java and its siblings are still at the top of the totem pole, though .NET is closing in at 57% popularity. C# is in third place behind C++ and C—and C++, while dropping eight percentage points from 2003's high of 67%, has not yet fallen below .NET.
Methodology An e-mail invitation asking 102,000 readers of Software Development to fill out a Web-based survey was sent on July 11, 2005. Over a six-week data collection period, 4,054 developers responded, comprising 2,795 staff and 1,259 managers. After removing students, the unemployed, consultants and part-time employees, and cleaning the data, a total of 3,439 records remained.
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