[boffinism]

Note the salary graph that shows if you've got over 10 years experience you can either be an engineering manager (small cog in a big machine) and make a ton of money, or a CTO (big cog in probably a much smaller machine) and make 20% less.

[codingdave]

That graph isn't showing years of experience vs. salary, it is showing average years of experience by role vs. salary. Most developers with more than 10 years experience are at the higher end (at least) of that graph, but those numbers just aren't what the graph represents.

[zemo]

the CTO/CEO point probably reflects that people who start their own company AND take the SO developer survey always call themselves CTO or CEO. People don't start their own company and call themselves a developer or an engineering manager. CTO ... of what? Most startups will die before they ever have an engineering manager.

[pc86]

C-suite is by definition close to the top but I wish more people would understand it also needs to be far from the bottom. You're not working on the types of things the C-suite works on unless you have a lot of people below you taking care of everything else.

[WhompingWindows]

For average salaries, why does this survey not display the sample size and variance of these mean estimates? Also, I doubt that mean estimates are the best measure, rather than medians. I say that since salary data is probably multi-modally distributed with some very high earners and a largely left-skewed distribution with many low earners who do the grunt work / are less experienced.