In many, probably most, companies a CTO is not necessarily someone coming from a software developer background but instead essentially an IT manager. And most companies are not headquartered in SF/Seattle/NYC, so $140k/year goes a lot farther there. That $140k figure also does not account for equity/bonuses
Maybe, but that's avg. So, some CTO's make 350-1M+ a year and so I'm supposed to believe many CTO's make less than 140k, maybe a lot less? Maybe indeed should slice the data in ways that make sense, but company size, or area only. As someone that manages 120+ people...I know a lot about what engineers and other tech workers make. These numbers are straight silliness.
Well there are biases also, first and foremost that this data is from Indeed.com and I doubt most high quality CTO positions are posted there. It would definitely make sense to separate based on company size for executive positions.
For sure. It's possible I'm just too sensitive to this stuff, but if you work at company of any size..say over 100, and you manage a lot of people...having your HR dept not understand how region, market, company size, etc effect how you should pay, is a huge pain point. These kind of "studies" just make that a lot harder.
Even the custom reports we get are "wrong" if you don't slice the statistics correctly. And a lot of people have no idea what's going on with compensation (salary, bonus and equity) right now, in competitive markets and competitive fields.
Our company is only 700 people and it's been a huge challenge.
