Even if you’re a developer wondering if you’re getting paid enough or just curious about how much web developers make in the US, this guide will put you on the right path.
In this salary guide, we’re going to look at web developer salaries based on five factors:
During the interview, you’ll probably get this question: “what is your expected salary?”
Many people don’t feel comfortable answering this question and usually reply with a question:
“What’s the salary range for this role?”
Knowing the average salary for a web developer comes in handy in this situation.
Besides, a company might turn you down if your salary expectation exceeds their budget for that particular role.
Most of them respect your expectations and won’t negotiate it further with you.
It happened to me once.
It was 2017, and I was in the interview process with a reputable company. I was so excited about it, and all my interviews had gone well.
One day, I was invited to their office for the final on-site interview. That’s where I got the expected salary question and gave the worst answer.
A few days later, I got a rejection email!
I was shocked! I reached out to one of the interviewers with whom I had developed a relationship.
And my guess was correct! My expected salary was beyond what they had allocated for that particular role.
Long story short, I fixed the misunderstanding, and in the end, I got an offer.
But you don’t have to go down the same road.
When you know the estimated salary for the role you’re applying for, the city you’re moving to, your experience, you’ll have enough confidence to answer this question. Because you know how far you can go.
Always do your research first.
Here comes the fun part; How much a coder makes in the United States in 2022?
Before we start, please not all the reported amounts are without cash bonus, and are pre-tax income.
Including these values are for informational purposes only and extracted from the major salary review platforms. Your recruiter and tax adviser would be able to give you a more accurate estimation.
Based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median pay for “web developers and digital designers” was $77,200 per year as of May 2020 ($37.12 per hour).
The median pay means 50% of users (for this role) have reported a salary equal to or greater than this amount.
For this article, I’ve used information from three major salary review websites: Glassdoor, Payscale, and Indeed.
Based on 12,039 Glassdoor users, the average base pay for a web developer in the United States is $72,707.
This confirms the BLS data.
Additionally, it estimates the additional pay to be around $31,715; This amount results in a total of $104,423 per year.
If you’re wondering what additional pay is, it includes cash bonuses, commission, tips, profit-sharing, etc.
Based on 12,039 Glassdoor users, the average base pay for a web developer in the United States is $72,707.
This is the average gross income before tax.
The average web developer salary based on all three platforms:
| Glassdoor | ~$72k | $72k is the average salary for a web developer in the United States (based on ~12,039 reviews). Based on Glassdoor, the Most Likely Range for the salary of a web developer is between $68k and $196k per year! |
|---|---|---|
| Payscale | ~$61k | As of May 2022, the average salary for a web developer was 61k – according to 4,961 Payscale users. |
| Indeed | ~$67k | 67k is what Indeed believes to be the average salary of a web developer in the United States. |
✤ How much should I expect?
As you can see, each platform reports a slightly different amount.
But if we average these amounts, we’ll get to $69k; This is the average base pay you should expect to receive as a web developer in the United States.
| Base pay web developer | $69k per year |
|---|
Please note this amount doesn’t include the additional pay, and it’s defintely not the higher end of the spectrum.
Your specialty affects your salary.
On the other hand, being a front-end or back-end developer makes a difference in the size of your paycheck.
I’ll start with back-end devs.
Based on Glassdoor, the average base pay of a back-end developer in the United States is $92k. And with the additional pay of $19,994, your gross income might reach $115!
Let’s take a look at what the three platforms have reported:
| Glassdoor | $95k | Back-end developers receive 95k per year. However, the higher end of the spectrum shows $184K! |
|---|---|---|
| Payscale | $87k | Payscale believes the average salary of a back-end developer to be $87k |
| Indeed | $95k | The amount reported by Indeed is slightly higher than the other two. It’s $95k |
✤ How much should I expect?
It seems $91k is the expected salary for a back-end developer in the United States.
| Base pay Back-end developer | $91k per year |
|---|
| Glassdoor | ~$82k | ~$82k is the amount Glassdoor believes to be the average salary of a front-end developer in the United States (June 2022). The estimated additional pay is $20,061 per year, which results in total pay of $103,171 per year. The higher end of the spectrum shows $179K. |
|---|---|---|
| Payscale | ~$77k | As expected, the amount reported by Payscale is slightly lower than Glassdoor’s; $77k per year. |
| Indeed | ~$92k | Based on Indeed, front-end developers in the United States make ~$92k per year. |
✤ How much should I expect?
The most probable amount to receive is $84,288/year.
| Base pay Front-end developer | $84k per year |
|---|
So on average, a back-end developer makes ~$7k more than a front-end developer.
You’re probably talking about full-stack developers.
A full-stack developer is someone who does both front-end and back-end development in a company.
Full-stack developer is a debated job title, but it’s still quite popular.
The software industry is very specialized, and you can hardly find somebody who is the master of everything. Smaller companies are interested in Full-stack developers because they only have to pay one person to do the whole work.
However, bigger teams prefer highly specialized developers because their business requirements are more complex.
Even estimating the a full-stack developer salary is a tricky because no two companies have the same definition of a full-stack developer job scope.
But let’s go through whatever we have on the three platforms:
| Glassdoor | ~$90k | Based on Glassdoor, full-stack developers in the United States make approximately ~$90k per year. |
|---|---|---|
| Payscale | ~$79k | Payscale reports ~$79k per year for a full-stack developer (lower than what Glassdoor and Indeed have reported). |
| Indeed | ~$101k | But as expected, Indeed has reported the highest amount, ~$101k. |
✤ How much should I expect?
If we make an average of the reported amounts, we’ll end up with $86k, which is probably closer to reality.
| Base pay Full-stack developer | $86k per year |
|---|
That’s a good question! How much do mobile app developers make?
Although mobile app developers aren’t considered web developers, let’s take a sneak peek at their estimated paycheck.
| Glassdoor | ~$76k | Glassdoor has reported ~$76k as the average salary of a mobile app developer in the United States. However, the total pay is estimated to be $106k after adding the additional pay. The higher end of the spectrum shows $195K per year! |
|---|---|---|
| Payscale | ~$75k | Based on Payscale, mobile app developers make ~$75k per year in the United States |
| Indeed | ~$93k | As usual, Indeed has the most generous estimate among the three resources for mobile app developers. According to Indeed, mobile app developers make ~$93k per year in the United States. |
✤ How much should I expect?
82k!
| Base pay Mobile developer | $82k per year |
|---|
A software engineer is someone (usually with an academic degree) specialized in all phases of the software development lifecycle.
They are capable of making web-based and system applications. They usually know their way around various software technologies, including programming languages and data storage/retrieval systems.
But how much do they really make per year?
Here are what we have:
| Glassdoor | ~$97k | Glassdoor says the average base pay of a software engineer in the US is ~$97k per year. The total pay reaches $115,027 after including the estimated additional pay. The highest salary – within the most likely range – is $165K per year. |
|---|---|---|
| Payscale | ~$88k | ~$88k per year, which is close to what Glassdoor reported (without additional pay). |
| Indeed | ~$93k | ~$127k per year! |
✤ How much should I expect?
The average pay according on the above 3 sources is $104k!
| Base pay Software engineer | $104k per year |
|---|
On average, software engineers make $11k more than back-end developers. It’s worth mentioning the term software engineer is a broad term, and sometimes it is used to refer to experienced back-end developers.
As you gain more experience, you can apply to roles with higher responsibilities. And having higher responsibility means having a higher salary.
You may have heard the terms junior developer or senior developer on the Internet.
This junior-senior terminology might not make sense to many; We’re always junior to new problems.
However, they have become the industry standard when it comes to recruitment.
And they affect your paycheck.
A “junior developer” is new to web development and the company. A senior developer, however, is someone with more experience and has been with the company for a longer period.
Carrying the title senior developer doesn’t necessarily mean they are the rock stars of web development. However, they have more experience with the company’s products.
On the other hand, the knowledge level of a senior developer is relative to their company’s definition of a senior developer. Maybe a senior developer in one company can’t be even a junior developer in another company.
How much “junior developers” make per year?
| Glassdoor | ~$61k | Based on Glassdoor, the average salary of a junior web developer is around ~$61k. |
|---|---|---|
| Payscale | ~$53k | Payscale reports the amount of ~$53k per year. |
| Indeed | ~$69k | Indeed believes the average salary of a junior web developer is ~$69k |
✤ How much should I expect?
Well, the average amount seems to be ~$58k – without additional pay.
| Base pay Junior developer | $58k per year |
|---|
The average amount is higher for senior developers, though:
| Glassdoor | ~$110k | Based on Glassdoor, the average salary of a senior web developer is around ~$110k. |
|---|---|---|
| Payscale | ~$87k | Payscale believes it’s ~$87k per year. |
| Indeed | ~$99k | $99k per year |
✤ How much should I expect?
On average, $99k per year.
| Base pay Senior developer | $99k per year |
|---|
The bottom line is as you gain more experience, your paycheck gets bigger.
This graph from Payscale says it all:
That’s an interesting one.
Does the web development technologies you use effect your salary?
The short answer is, Yes!
It appears your salary is tied to the programming language you specialize in.
And it’s not because one language is better than the other. It seems to be a supply-demand thing.
You might be surprised that less popular languages have a higher salary.
Stackoverflow had a survey in 2021 with 80,000 participants.
Based on the collected data, the following languages were among the least popular languages:
| Programming Language | Popularity |
|---|---|
| Delphi | 2.1% |
| Clojure | 1.88% |
| Elixir | 1.74% |
| LISP | 1.33% |
| Julia | 1.29% |
| F# | 0.97% |
| Erlang | 0.79% |
| APL | 0.65% |
| Crystal | 0.56% |
| COBOL | 0.53% |
It becomes interesting when you check the pay based on technology. Based on the survey, the least popular programming languages are among the highest-paying skills in the industry!
Based on StackOverflow, the top paying technologies are:
| Programming Language | Estimated Pay |
|---|---|
| Clojure | $95,000 |
| F# | $81,037 |
| Elixir | $80,077 |
| Erlang | $80,077 |
| Perl | $80,000 |
| Ruby | $80,000 |
| Scala | $77,832 |
| Rust | $77,530 |
| Go | $75,669 |
| LISP | $75,669 |
Only Perl was among the popular languages!
The result of the SO survey doesn’t necessarily mean you should learn less popular languages for a higher salaries.
I mean you can if you want! But there are also other factors to consider when picking up a programming language.
Beside the salary, you should always consider the job market for that programming language.
But how about the popular languages? How much would you make if you learn at least one of them?
Let’s check out what our three sources have reported.
The table below displays the average salary of web developers with at least one of the popular programming languages in their skill set:
| Programming language | Average salary |
|---|---|
| JavaScript | ~$94k |
| HTML/CSS | ~$67k |
| Python | ~$99k |
| SQL | ~$89k |
| Java | ~$99k |
| Node.js | ~$95k |
| TypeScript | ~$86k |
| C# | ~$92k |
| Bash/Shell | ~$81k |
| C++ | ~$101k |
| PHP | ~$85k |
It’s not only the specialty, experience level, or programming language which effect your salary, though;
Salaries might significantly differ from company to company.
Sometimes the difference is owing to the job scope and responsibilities. But sometimes it’s just the company’s strategy.
Some companies are generous enough to pay their employees above the average salaries.
However, some companies prefer to compensate in different ways. For instance, by providing perks such as gym membership, transportation discounts, free snacks, training, etc.
The table below is extracted from open positions of six famous companies on Glassdoor:
| Company | Average salary | Reported salaries |
|---|---|---|
| ~$141k | 33 | |
| Paypal | ~$126k | 19 |
| Apple | ~$121k | 24 |
| Amazon | ~100k | 43 |
| IBM | ~$96k | 29 |
| ~$84k | 64 |
Please note, the web developer in the above companies may have totally different responsibilities, which effect their salary.
Big cities are expensive.
And the housing cost is the biggest expense, you always need to be aware of.
In addition to the rent, groceries, transportation, healthcare are also higher in big cities.
That’s why companies have to offer higher salaries to attract national and international talents – even though that high salary is going to pay higher bills.
Although some companies claim to pay location-agnostic salaries, you might get less in more affordable cities.
For instance, company A might offer a lower salary based on their office location. In fact, many companies benefit from location-based salaries because they can gather their tech teams in more affordable locations.
But what cities have the highest salaries in the United States in 2022?
Based on Indeed, these are the top eight cities with the highest paying web developer jobs in the United States in 2022.
| City | Average salary |
|---|---|
| New York, NY | ~$78k |
| Washington, DC | ~$78k |
| Los Angeles, CA | ~$74k |
| Chicago, IL | ~$73k |
| Austin, TX | ~$70k |
| Houston, TX | ~$69k |
| Miami, FL | ~$67k |
| Orlando, FL | ~$65k |
| Jacksonville, FL | ~$65k |
If you’re planning to move to a new city for a dev role, you need to determine your ideal cost of living first. You might have to renegotiate your salary because if you don’t, you might not have a smooth transition during your move.
I hope by now you have an idea of how salaries differ according to various factors.
By taking these factors into account, it’s easier to come up with a reasonable expected salary; A salary that matches your specialty, experience level, company, and geographical location.
On the other hand, you’ll be more confident in telling the interviewers how you much you’re thinking.
Good luck with your job hunt!
Thanks for reading.
Absolutely! There are lots of reasons to be a web developer in 2022. Here are a few:
Based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median pay for “web developers and digital designers” was $77,200 per year as of May 2020 ($37.12 per hour).
However, according to the salaries reported by Glassdoor, Payscale, and Indeed, the average salary for a web developer in the United States is around $70k per year.
Learning software development is a “learn → build, learn → build, learn → build” process, rather than “learn, learn, learn → build“. When you understand the basics and know where to look for more details, you know enough. That said, you can make a simple website after in a few days.
The more you learn, the more you can do!
Reza Lavarian Hey 👋 I'm a software engineer, an author, and an open-source contributor. I enjoy helping people (including myself) decode the complex side of technology. I share my findings on Twitter: @rezalavarian
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