ABOUT THE REPORT
Although the global health pandemic of 2020 served as a catalyst to an unprecedented digital transformation and prompted many previously reluctant executives to implement DevOps practices into their organizations, DevOps/SRE remains an imbalanced market in terms of offer and demand. With a scarce talent pool and a persisting lack of understanding of both the practice and its benefits, companies are left competing for top candidates using outdated information regarding compensation, while SREs navigate job opportunities with the uncertainty that their worth is fairly paid.
In an effort to shed some light on the matter, we conducted a survey to gather in-depth information regarding salary, incentives, and benefits in the DevOps/SRE marketplace. We looked at how salaries vary according to an engineer’s level of experience and the maturity and size of a company, the role’s geographic distribution as well as gender and ethnic representation across the DevOps/SRE space.
Our hope is that the findings will help executives define fair and competitive offers when they seek top talent. Likewise, we wish this report can serve as a useful benchmark for SREs considering different career opportunities.
Get the latest compensation data from our 2021 DevOps/SRE survey report.
METHODOLOGY
The survey was distributed in multiple channels, requesting that DevOps professionals and SREs respond to questions regarding experience, compensation, demographics, and size of the company.
Survey respondents reported information about salary by selecting the range their base salary fell into.
The same method was used for benefits and bonuses. Regarding equity, SREs selected between three major types of stock options. Survey respondents also rated their overall satisfaction with their current compensation.
The majority of respondents have 10 or more years of experience, illustrating the maturity of the market.
More than 47 percent of respondents work at companies with more than 1,000 employees, while 32 percent work at organizations with less than 250 employees.
Only 5 percent of respondents identified as female, which points to challenges with diversity in the field.
FINDINGS
The DevOps/SRE market is showing clear signs of maturing, with most survey respondents reporting over 10 years of experience in the field.
Considering that DevOps is still one of the newer roles in the technology industry, it is promising to see the space is maturing. Furthermore, the survey found that more experience is likely to net professionals at a higher salary.
