Puppet Labs

DevOps Salary Report

The 2014 State of DevOps report covers a number of findings we learned about what
it takes for IT performance to be a real strategic asset, based on responses from more
than 9,200 technology professionals around the world.
We discovered that teams using DevOps practices such as continuous integration
and automated testing tend to be high performers. And we found a strong correlation
between these high-performing IT teams and their organizations superior
business performance.
We didnt set out to do an in-depth exploration of salary, but we did ask one question
about it while gathering demographic data. The distribution of salaries by job and regions
is interesting in itself, and worth sharing. Below, youll find charts that let you compare
tech salaries in different regions, different industries, and for various job titles.
As we sliced the data, we chose to display results only for groups with at least 200
respondents. Much of the analysis focused on the United States, because thats where
the largest number of respondents were based, giving us more demographic groups
with at least 200 respondents to work with.
We invite you to peruse the findings in this report, and see how your own salary stacks
up to others in your region and in your field.

What the charts are telling you

We provided survey respondents with salary ranges and
asked them to identify where they fell. Below, youll see
a color-coded key for these salary bands, which we use
for all the charts.
Salary ranges are expressed in U.S. dollars, including those
for international respondents. We did not adjust for cost
of living. Above each salary-range bar, youll see a percentage
figure; thats the percentage of respondents in the specific
group represented earning within that specific salary range.

Chart Key
<25K
25K-34K
35K-49K
50K-74K
75K-99K
100K-124K
125K-150K
150K>

Puppet Labs DevOps Salary Report

Salaries of IT practitioners in the United States, Western Europe,

Eastern Europe and Asia
IT practitioners in the United States earn the highest salaries compared to other
regions, including Western Europe. Whats really noticeable is the strong skewing to
the lowest salary bands in Eastern Europe and Asia. We wonder if this is due not only
to different economic contexts, but also to a much higher concentration of DevOps
adoption in Europe and the United States. This speculation is driven partly by our
observation last year that organizations with the most mature DevOps practices also
paid their IT practitioners better than others.
Its interesting to note the differences in salary distribution between the two highestpaid regions. Where a third of the European respondents earn $50,000 to $74,000
per year the biggest salary band group in the region just 18 percent of U.S.
respondents earn in that range. Where 57 percent of U.S. IT practitioners earn
between $75,000 and $124,000 (split just about equally between those earning
$75,000 to $99,000, and those earning $100,000 to $124,000), only 27 percent of the
European IT practitioners fall into that range.
United States

Western Europe

29%

32%

28%
20%

18%
12%
<1%

<1%

7%

4%

19%

11%

8%

5%

Salary Bands

3%

2%

<1%

1%

Salary Bands

Eastern Europe

Asia
54%

42%

22%

21%

17%
11%

9%
4%
Salary Bands

1%

7%

6%

<1%

3%

Salary Bands

Puppet Labs DevOps Salary Report

Salaries of practitioners and managers in the United States

Practitioner salaries fall into a bell curve, with 47 percent earning $100,000 per year
or more. Manager salaries cluster at the top, with 78 percent of managers earning
$100,000 or more.
Practictioner United States
29%

Manager United States

28%

26%

28%
24%

18%
14%

12%
<1%

<1%

7%

4%

<1%
Salary Bands

<1%

1%

5%

Salary Bands

IT practitioner salaries in five industries, United States

You can observe some interesting differences in distribution between practitioner
salary bands in specific industries. While both technology and web software showed
similar bell-curve characteristics, the technology salaries tended higher; 53 percent
of those in technology make more than $100,000, while 45 percent of those in web
software make that much.
Contrast this with practitioner salaries in the education sector, where just 17 percent
make more than $100,000 per year. Salaries in this sector were concentrated in the
lower-middle salary bands: 71 percent of practitioners make between $50,000 and
$99,000 per year. This likely reflects the constrained budgets and structured salary
ladders characteristic of educational institutions.
Fifty-three percent of practitioners in finance make $100,000 per year or more,
while 58 percent of those in entertainment and media earn at least that much.
This could imply that entertainment companies (which may include film studios, media
companies, internet broadcast, etc.), recognize that IT confers a competitive advantage.

Puppet Labs DevOps Salary Report

Think about the elaborate technology required for special computer-generated effects
in film and digital games, or of how heavily Netflix has invested in creating a flexible
cloud-native infrastructure to support streaming video on demand. Spotify has also
invested deeply in infrastructure, and now provides uninterrupted streaming audio to
more than 50 million listeners.
Technology United States

Web Software United States

27%

<1%

19%

17%

16%
<1%

30%

29%

7%

2%

<1%

<1%

14%
6%

4%

Salary Bands

Salary Bands

Education United States

38%

25%

Finance United States

33%

32%
24%

2%

3%

13%

7%

14%

11%
3%

1%

2%

15%

2%
Salary Bands

Salary Bands

Entertainment/Media United States

35%
26%

<1%

3%

4%

8%

14%

9%

Salary Bands

Puppet Labs DevOps Salary Report

IT practitioner salaries by job title, United States

Despite ongoing controversy about the validity of the job title itself, DevOps engineers
make noticeably better salaries than most other practitioner job titles that showed
up in the 2014 survey and report. Fifty-eight percent of U.S. DevOps engineers make
$100,000 per year or more. They are surpassed only by architects, a group that
includes three distinct job titles: architects; cloud or infrastructure architects; and
systems architects. This finding aligns with our discovery in 2013 that organizations
with the most mature DevOps practices were more likely to pay their IT operations
people $100,000 or more.
Software developers rank third for concentration in the top three salary bands:
48 percent of U.S. survey respondents with this job title make at least $100,000 per
year. However, the gap narrows considerably when we look at one specific salary
band: between $100,000 and $124,000 per year. Thirty-two percent of surveyed U.S.
software developers earn in this range, compared to 36 percent of DevOps engineers.
(Note: Those working in software engineering were a larger group nearly 29 percent
of all respondents, compared with 16 percent who identified themselves as working in
DevOps departments.)
Seventeen percent of U.S. respondents working as system administrators earn
between $100,000 and $124,000. Adding in those who earn $125,000 and above
gives us 23 percent of sysadmins earning in the top three bands.

The IT practitioner
group includes
respondents with
these job titles:

Application engineer
Architect
Automation or tooling engineer
Cloud or infrastructure architect
Database administrator
DevOps engineer
Infrastructure engineer
Network administrator
Network architect
Network engineer
Network operator

Network security
Operations engineer
QA engineer
QA tester
Release or build engineer
Site reliability engineer
Software developer or engineer
System administrator
Systems architect
Systems engineer
Web developer

The manager group does not include C-level executives.

Puppet Labs DevOps Salary Report

DevOps Engineers United States

Software Developers United States

36%

32%

32%

25%

<1%

<1%

17%

15%

13%

7%

2%

10%
1%

2%

Salary Bands

Salary Bands

System Administrators United States

32%

Systems Engineers United States

35%

34%

29%
17%

9%
1%

6%

17%
5%

<1%

12%
1%

Salary Bands

<1%

<1%

3%

2%
Salary Bands

Architects United States

31%
22%

<1%

<1%

23%
17%

5%
Salary Bands

Puppet Labs DevOps Salary Report

IT practitioner salaries in four U.S. states

U.S. survey respondents represented most of the 50 states, but just four states had
more than 200 practitioner respondents each: California, New York, Oregon and Texas.
California had the largest number of respondents, and practitioner salaries are notably
high in this state: 65 percent of respondents earn $100,000 or more. That figure
puts California which has a very large technology industry and the eighth-largest
economy in the world significantly ahead of the other states. Even New York, with its
heavy concentration of large U.S. and multinational companies, comes second, with 58
percent earning $100,000-plus. And in New York, the salaries skew more towards the
lower end of the six-figure range.
Oregon has the same percentage of people earning $100,000 to $124,000 as
California: 27 percent. Its in the highest two salary bands $125,000 and higher
that California outpaces all the other states.

California United States

New York United States

35%
23%

27%

14%

9%
<1%

<1%

26%

24%

2%

<1%

<1%

Salary Bands

Oregon United States

Texas United States

32%
21%

2%

9%

2%

Salary Bands

6%

14%

11%

27%

25%
8%

2%
Salary Bands

2%

<1%

30%

31%

6%

3%

4%

Salary Bands

Puppet Labs DevOps Salary Report

Be part of the 2015 State of DevOps survey!

The 2014 State of DevOps survey and report revealed what it takes to have a highperforming IT team, and the powerful effect such a team can have on the performance
of its organization. In 2015, we plan to dig deeper into salaries and other financial
ramifications of DevOps. We invite you to take part in this upcoming survey, and we
thank the 9,200-plus people who did last year. If your industry or geographic area
is not well represented in the 2014 results, you can help us expand the picture and
create a more comprehensive and diverse data set in 2015 by inviting your friends and
colleagues to participate, too.

Acknowledgements

Authors: Michelle Carroll and Aliza Earnshaw

Graphics: Sze Wa Cheung
Data analysis: Pamela Ju
Editor: Aliza Earnshaw
With thanks to Alanna Brown, Justin Dorff, Daniel Dreier, Nigel Kersten,
Christy McCreath, Molly Niendorf and Wally Zabaglio

Puppet Labs DevOps Salary Report