Research shows there’s a lot more to job satisfaction than money — but competitive compensation is still instrumental for people deciding whether to join or stay with a company.
Compensation depends on a number of factors, including demand for the position, years of experience and the unique value an employee brings to a role. Before negotiating your salary with a new or current employer, research standard salaries for your role, as well as expected responsibilities and skills.
Of the positions featured here, DevOps engineers were the best paid, with a median income of $160,000 in 2019, according to our salary data collected from thousands of people across the local tech ecosystem. Right behind them were senior-level software engineers at $157,000, followed by product managers at $140,000.
Some job titles on this list are relatively new — like DevOps Engineer or UX Designer. As companies find new ways to streamline workflows and connect with customers, new disciplines emerge, creating more opportunities for talented techies.
With 85 percent of New York City tech companies planning to grow their teams in 2020 — and tech giants Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google expected to employ 20,000 in the city by 2022 — New York City’s tech scene likely will continue to boom. In fact, Brooklyn’s 356 percent startup growth rate since 2008 is second only to San Francisco.
Here’s a breakdown of the skills, responsibilities and median salaries for some of the most sought-after tech roles in the area. If you don’t find what you’re looking for here, check out our Salary Guide.
Front-End Developer
Front-end developers create the parts of a website users interact with. Using HTML, CSS, JavaScript and other tools, they make sure websites and applications are fast, navigable, scalable and visually appealing.
Median salary: $115,000
Common responsibilities:
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Develop high-quality web applications
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Communicate with cross-functional teams, including designers, back-end developers and product managers
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Perform quality assurance checks
Common skills: HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, jQuery, AJAX, PHP, Python, Ruby, Git, content management systems, LAMP-based servers
Software Engineer
Also called programmers or back-end developers, software engineers write code that establishes the computational logic of a website or software. While front-end developers work on elements users interact with directly, back-end developers make sure the behind-the-scenes software does what it’s supposed to do.
Median salary: $127,500
Senior Software Engineer — 3-5 years experience: $157,000
Common responsibilities:
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Use agile software development practices like pair programming, testing and small, frequent code commits
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Work with design team and product manager to design, build and release products on schedule
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Stay up to date on new, useful programming languages and open source projects
Common skills: database management, RESTFUL APIs, cloud infrastructure services, Java technologies
DevOps Engineer
DevOps engineers are a bridge between development teams and IT teams. As a discipline, DevOps creates overlap between the people who design and build a product and the people who operate it, allowing teams to release and tweak products more efficiently.
Median salary: $160,000
Common responsibilities:
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Help optimize operational processes, and use operational feedback to improve products
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Set up and monitor automated tests
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Maintain system and data security
Common skills: cloud infrastructure services, CICD technologies, query tools, data visualization tools, APIs, programming languages including Python, Hadoop and Spark
Data Scientist
Data scientists help companies collect and analyze data to improve their products, processes and services. That may include building models, creating algorithms and communicating insights to stakeholders.
Median salary: $127,000
Common responsibilities:
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Apply statistical techniques to data to glean helpful insights or solve problems
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Present findings to technical and non-technical audiences
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Use behavioral data to create customer segmentations and profiles
Common skills: Machine learning, data mining, data modeling, gig data technologies including Hadoop, Databricks, R, Python, SQL and SAS
Data Engineer
Data engineers set up and maintain data infrastructures for their organizations. They work with a variety of programming languages to set up processes for data acquisition, transformation and modeling — as well as machine learning and other AI work.
Median salary: $127,500
Common responsibilities:
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Work with data architects to create a data pipeline
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Manipulate data in preparation for modeling and analysis
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Build frameworks for data migration
Common skills: ETL and data warehouse technologies, machine learning, knowledge of relational and multi-dimensional database architecture, knowledge of testing methodologies, knowledge of relevant programming languages like Hadoop, Python, Go or Ruby
Product Manager
Product managers oversee the development of products, from design to building to shipment. They must have excellent communication and project-planning skills to help design, data and engineering teams work well together.
Median salary: $140,000
Common responsibilities:
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Create and maintain a product development budget and schedule
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Analyze data and communicate with clients and customer-facing teams to understand new product and feature needs
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Track and report KPIs
Common skills: Business intelligence tools, programming languages and workflows, product development methodologies such as Agile, A/B testing, people management, presentations
Marketing Manager
A marketing manager analyzes trends and best practices, then oversees their team’s efforts to drive demand for a product or service. They must collaborate with executives to align marketing campaigns with company goals and, often, with outside vendors to create a variety of marketing content.
Median salary: $85,000
Common responsibilities:
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Conduct or commission consumer research
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Align creative assets with business needs
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Communicate with other departments to assess the effectiveness of marketing campaigns
Common skills: Digital KPIs, project management, people management, statistics, content optimization engines, presentations, A/B testing
UX Designer
A UX designer uses research, user personas, prototypes and product tests to make products as engaging and user-friendly as possible. Their considerations include the graphic design and information architecture of a product.
Median salary: $100,000
Common responsibilities:
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Create use cases, user scenarios, wire frames, user flows, prototypes, site architecture and proof of concept documents
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Work with designers and copywriters to provide complete UX frameworks to engineering teams
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Test features, analyze data and harness feedback to iterate on UX design
Common skills: Adobe Creative Suite, HTML5, CSS3, interactive design, information architecture, responsive web design
Sales Account Executive
Account executives work with sales development representatives to find and pursue business leads. Much of their job consists of outbound sales calls and presentations to prospects sourced by development reps. After making a sale, executives usually pass accounts off to account managers.
Median salary: $85,000
Common responsibilities:
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Research a potential client’s pain points and unique business needs
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Develop sales scripts and strategies for outreach
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Aggressively pursue new business leads
Common skills: Salesforce, Excel, needs analysis, opportunity management, negotiation, presentations, sales methodologies
Sales Account Manager
An account manager owns the company’s relationships with clients. Once sales development representatives and account executives source and secure a sale, account managers take over, ensuring the customer gets what they need and positioning the team for upsells and renewals.
Median salary: $76,500
Common responsibilities:
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Communicate with clients to track business needs and assess satisfaction
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Work in tandem with customer success team to build strong client relationships
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Periodically negotiate upsells and renewals
Common skills: Excel, Salesforce, negotiation, financial analysis, sales methodologies, portfolio management, presentations
Sales Development Representative
Sales development representatives identify, qualify and reach out to sales leads for their organizations. Their job isn’t to close deals, but to build industry knowledge and contacts and maintain a steady pipeline of business prospects.
Median salary: $51,000
Common responsibilities:
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Conduct lead qualification, prospecting and, sometimes, outreach
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Connect with potential clients in person when needed, including at events and trade shows
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Work with sales team to seamlessly hand off qualified leads
Common skills: Salesforce, Excel, revenue research tools such as LinkedIn Navigator, cold calls, presentations
Client Success Manager
Client success managers help their teams successfully support and retain existing clients. This includes educating customers, measuring results and satisfaction, dealing with problems and setting account managers up for renewals.
Median salary: $81,500
Common responsibilities:
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Optimize renewal and upsell rates
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Build strong relationships with decision-makers on the client side
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Share customer perspectives and success stories to influence product decisions
Common skills: People management, KPI identification and tracking, change management, conflict resolution, program management
