How to hunt down the best paid tech jobs

I've sometimes been quoted my salary on Twitter only to be told, in no uncertain terms, that dev jobs in London don't pay that much.

Not only is this simply not true, it goes further: I'm not even at the top of the range for dev incomes in my area.

This isn't just a London thing. It's everywhere. The truth is, as with most things in life, "There are whole other levels to this sh*t".

The thing about tech salaries is that there seem to be two different levels. What I call "top tier", and then what I call "everything else".

Before I go on, just to let you know I'm now offering mock JavaScript phone interviews. Go to the bottom of the email for booking link.

There is also a good remote job on offer at the bottom of the email!

Top tier jobs tend to be the following: big tech, investment banking, hedge funds / asset management companies (not so much retail banking). When I say big tech, I'm not just talking FAANG companies (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google), but also many of the other top tech companies (Elastic, Microsoft, Spotify etc) all probably pay quite well too.

Everything else is just every other company not in this category, which to be honest is the majority of the job market.

Ok, so there's too tiers... but what you all want to know is the difference is pay between the tiers.

I have a good idea of the London market, so I can talk about that, in pounds sterling, and you can extrapolate from there. Also as a side note I'm talking about "Software Engineer" jobs, not just JavaScript Developer jobs.

On a standard job board for London, it tells me this:


The average salary for a Software Engineer in London is £72,499. Software Engineer in London salaries range from £57,799 to £87,499.

If you ask most devs in London, they will say this sounds about right. People who work in the top tier jobs well, however, tell you it's low.

So what do the figures look like for top tier jobs?

These are the stats from https://www.levels.fyi/, which is a little like glassdoor but for tech and mostly dominated by top tier companies. It tells a different story:

Median Salary: £104,139
Top 10% salary: £189,044

That's a difference of around 50% more on average, and well over 100% on the top end. Smart readers will also know that average salaries (quoted from first job site) tend to be higher than median salaries (quoted from levels.fyi) by quite a margin, so the difference in reality is easily >50%, I'd guess closer to 100%.

"But this is London, I don't work in London!". This is true, but London is just an example. It'll also certainly be like this in the states too, and probably many other places. The bottom line is this:

You can probably double your income by moving to a top tier company.

So why do so few devs seem to know about the top tier jobs and salaries?

There are a couple of reasons.

Firstly the advertised salaries at top tier places advertised aren't as high as I am talking about here. This is because top tier jobs are all about "total comp". Total comp is total compensation. Total compensation is salary plus extras like bonus and / or stock. It's these extras that make the incomes from top tier places so high.

For example Facebook might advertise £100k + stock + bonus. People might think that looks good, but not amazing. But then the stock could be £80k and the bonus £20k, which doubles your income. It's similar with the asset management companies I've interviewed at. They advertise £120k + bonus, but the bonus is up to 100% for a total comp of £240k. Since many don't realise how big the extras are, they don't realise how much they could get paid there.

The second reason people miss these incomes is that these types of jobs don't come looking for you unless you have a certain profile. Take me for example. The hedge funds and asset managers didn't start approaching me until I had Goldman Sachs in my work history on Linked In. Before that I didn't realise software dev could bring in >£200k in London. When they first contacted me I could not believe how much they were offering!

I guess it's true with the top tech companies as well. If you have a company like Google or Twitter on your Linked In, then I'm guessing the well paid tech companies will come knocking on your door.

This all leads to the big question, how do I get a job at a place like this? It seems to me there are 3 ways to get into companies like this:

  1. Go to a top University and get a good grade. Many of these places hire straight from the likes of Oxford, Harvard, MIT.
  2. Already work for a company like this, and you'll probably be approached on linked in (this is the situation I'm currently in).
  3. You identify these companies and proactively apply and get hired for them.

I got a lucky break as investment banking really started needing a lot of JavaScript people at a time when they didn't have them in house.

So how would you go about hunting these companies down and getting hired?

First is finding a list of these companies which you'd like to work for. Use levels.fyi to search in your local area. You will find a list of total comps with job title, company and total years of experience the person that entered the data has.

From there you can find the companies that pay what you want for your level of experience.

What if there are none of these companies in my city?

If you are in the USA or the UK you have a couple of options. First is to search in the big tech heavy cities (like London, San Francisco) and consider relocating there. The second is to search in these cities and then find out if these companies do any remote hiring within the country (highly likely in the US).

If you are in another country, probably search in the US and then find out if any of these companies higher remote globally or have offices in your country which are hiring.

You then gather as much information as you can on their interview practices (glassdoor and leetcode often have info on this).

You then study for the interview. Yes study, possibly for months. I think this really is key. You have to stop viewing interviews as tests to see if you're good enough to do the job and start thinking of them as exams, no different to how you took exams in school. Who the hell wouldn't study long and hard for their exams at school and expect to pass?

You may think these jobs are only for the super talented 10x type people, but this is not the case. For example, I worked with a guy. He was a solid dev but no mythical 10xer. He got a very well paid position and Facebook as a dev at 42 years old. How? He studied to pass the interview for 3 months.

How to study? Well that's a whole other topic. The point for now is don't be put off thinking you aren't gifted enough.

Next you find job openings by searching jobs on linked in for those companies or just googling for "<company name> jobs" or something like that. Then you apply.

To manage your expectations, please know that these jobs are, for obvious reasons, highly competitive. I'd say my current job is at the lower end of the top tier, and I've had a few interviews now at companies that would take my income above £200k (a lot for a dev in London). The first two I didn't study for, got crushed in the interviews. The third one I had studied for a little. I passed all 6 interviews they gave me, but ultimately the job went to a candidate with better knowledge of the finance industry. As I said, competitive! I am studying almost every day now and will soon be working out which companies to apply to.

Want to crush JavaScript interviews? I am now taking bookings for mock JavaScript phone screen interviews. It's a 30 minute mock interview tailored to your level, then 15 minutes of one on one feedback where I discuss your weak points and how to improve.

Because this is new I'm offering it very cheaply (I'd usually value my time at $120+ an hour usually), so if this takes off the price will go up. Also I have only opened 3 slots at this time as I'm very busy.

Book here: https://wellpaidgeek.gumroad.com/l/javascript-mock-interview

Remote job: SciCharts is hiring a remote experienced JavaScript developer. Please do not contact me about this, I am not work there. More details and to apply: https://www.scichart.com/vacancies/



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