2017 Software Development Salary Survey

Career Development Preferences

THE SURVEY ASKED RESPONDENTS IF THEY ENGAGED IN ANY SPECIFIC CAREER-DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES: reading books and blogs, watching videos, taking online classes, and attending conferences.

It turns out that none of these activities affected salary in any substantial way. The median salary was around $80K for the respondents in each of the preferred career-development options. The only two exceptions were “None of the above,” which had a detrimental effect on salaries, dropping them to $65K, and “Taking Classes in-person,” which raised the median salary to $95K.

While the salaries might be similar for the different activities, what activities are chosen varies greatly. The most popular was reading books (89%), followed by reading blogs (78%). O’Reilly Media sells a lot of books, so it isn’t a surprise that reading is high on the list, but O’Reilly also hosts conferences across many different disciplines. About half of our respondents said they attend conferences as a way to improve their careers. Roughly the same amount said they take online classes, whereas about 3 out of 4 respondents said they use videos as a source of information.

Lower down the preferred list are company-sponsored trainings (31%) and in-person classes (15%). Respondents who prefer to take in-person classes tended to have a higher median salary (around $95K) than any of the other career-development options. This probably has less to do with the classes themselves and more to do with ...