Salary report: What differentiates remote developers who earn $100K+

Significant differences exist between remote developers who make USD 100K per year and those who do not. That’s according to a six-figure remote developer salary report released by remote career platform Arc.

Arc analyzed salary data from 3,070 global remote developers received from January to May 2022. Some key takeaways include:

1. Discipline: Remote developers with six-figure incomes are less likely to be front-end developers. Only 12.4% of $100K+ developers specialize in frontend development while 27.2% of developers earning less than $100K do so.

2. Businses Stage:

   • Remote developers with six-figure salaries are more likely to work in public companies. 43.3% of the $100k+ group are from public companies, while only 28.1% of the under-$100K group are in public companies.

   • In contrast, developers with $100k+ income are less likely to work in early-stage startups. 15.9% of $100k+ devs work in pre-seed and seed-funded companies, while 24.4% of non-$100K devs do so.

3. Currency: Six-figure remote developers are much more likely to earn in USD. ​​The majority of six-figure developers, at 69.4%, get paid in US dollars. In contrast, only 32.3% of non-$100K devs do so.

“Although not all developers earn six-figure incomes, those that do have certain things in common,” says Arc CEO Weiting Liu. “Arc’s survey data shows that strategic career pivots — into or away from certain disciplines, roles, and employers — can help developers increase their chances of earning these top salaries. Early career developers should be intentional about their career choices to ensure they stay on track toward higher earnings. And for non-US-based developers, remote work has opened more doors to earn in US dollars. This strongly increases the chance of a high salary.”

Additional findings regarding country, role title, and seniority include:

1. Country:

   • Country of employer HQ: Developers with six-figure incomes are much more likely to work with US employers — 61.5% vs 19.9%. That difference is a whopping 41.5%.

   • Country of residence: Devs making six figures are more likely to be based in the US — 31.8% vs only 0.9%.

2. Role title: 

   • $100k+ devs are more likely than the under-$100K group to have the title of “Team Lead” — 22.9% vs 15.2%.

   • Devs making $100K+ are less likely to be “Individual contributors”. 59.9% of $100K devs work as individual contributors while 65.2% of under-$100K devs do so.

3. Seniority: Developers with a $100K+ salary are more likely than under-$100K devs to be senior developers with 6 or more years of experience — 68.5% vs 35.8%.

Please visit the full report here.

About Arc:

Arc is a radically different remote job search platform for developers. We connect developers worldwide with tech companies hiring remotely. We have over 1 million developers in our network. Our mission is to help anyone build an amazing remote career from anywhere.

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