Hi guys, I want to talk about this years salary survey carried out by the game developper magazine, issue of April 2009 They consider 3 sorts of position in the programming field (1) Programmer/Engineer (2) Lead Programmer (3) Technical Director Here are the rough figures in US$: - Experience < 3 yrs (1) 59,000 (2) 100,000 (3) - - Expericence 3-6 yrs (1) 75,500 (2) 80,000 (3) 90,000 - Experience > 6 yrs (1) 98,500 (2) 109,000 (3) 127,000 First, I'm very surprised that a lead programmer of less than 3 years of experince earns more in average than one of 3-6 years of experience. What do you thinks? Almost looks like a mistake to me. But most importantly, for those of you that are in the buisness, do you consider yourself in the ranges above? I don't. The survey does not mention if it takes into account bonuses (it most certainly does) and other advantages like health insurance. What are your thoughts seeing those numbers?

The numbers don't look outrageous. Take into account many of the survey responses were probably from people living in Seattle or San Francisco where the game industry is really big. Those cities are pretty expensive and wages there are higher than in other parts of the country.

Avg salaries:
- West: 85,500
- Midwest: 70,000
- South: 68,000
- East: 75,000

(I'm not good enough at US geography to name in which part they considered each state is)

[Edited by - janta on April 11, 2009 5:39:50 PM]

That looks pretty reasonable. I'm in the midwest, and I'm not a full time employee yet in the game industry, just an intern, but in 5-6 years or so I'd expect to be making about 70k a year.

And I can't speak for everyone, obviously, but I know some game programmers making over 100k out in Seattle and California, so it's definitely possible.

Another factor, I think, is what type of games your company makes. I know some budget game companies run much smaller operations and don't pay as well as the companies developing bigger name titles.

It probably isn't a mistake, just the result of a limited sample size. It isn't like every single programmer's salary was calculated into that.

Quote: Original post by zer0wolf
It probably isn't a mistake, just the result of a limited sample size. It isn't like every single programmer's salary was calculated into that.

That's my take of the apparaent discrepency too. A lead programmer with less than 3 years experience is probably rare and was given the job due to a lot of experience outside the field.

I'd have thought the figures would have been higher. They seem about that nearly a decade ago. Or it might have just seemed that way when I compared the average US wage to my significantly smaller Aussie one.