Designers earn more than design managers

Designers don’t have to become managers to earn well. In fact, individual contributors may earn more than managers.

I analysed 13,074 design salaries at 3096 companies for my upcoming book. Some insights and thoughts:

On “parallel” levels, ICs earn 3–8% more than managers (base salary). My first thought was that it would be counter-balanced with equity. However, ICs get 11–17% more equity than managers as well.

The titles on the chart are approximate since they differ across companies. Salary: USA, 50th percentile. Equity: USA, 50th Percentile, Unvested Equity (next 12m, gross, actual), Private Companies Only

These numbers are more precise than self-reported salaries on levels.fyi or Glassdoor. Matt Schulman helped me get this live data from Pave which is synced with real HR systems.

My speculations on why IC designers make more than managers:

1. There is nowhere to progress after the Principal level, so ICs are compensated for hitting the progression ceiling earlier.
2. Principals (P6) are extremely rare — there are 13x more managers on the same level (M5 Directors), while the impact of such a Principal could be at least as high as that of a Director.
3. The progress on the Management track could be faster/easier than on the IC track (validating that now).

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