By Jack Ganssle

Salaries and Ages

Published 5/13/2008

A recent survey by VDC (http://www.vdc-corp.com/ganssle/salary_data.pdf ) reveals some interesting data about embedded developers' ages and salaries.

In Western Europe the numbers are significantly lower, with embedded developers averaging a still respectable $74k.

In India the average is $26k though that's biased by a few extreme data points. The $15k median may be more representative. But $15k is nearly six times the country's per capita GDP. Our US salaries are only twice the US per capita GDP.

In India the mean age is 30 with a median of 28, suggesting either that embedded developers are a very new thing in that country, or that they move into another field after acquiring around a decade of experience. The first possibility certainly makes sense, but so does the second. In other Asian countries I'm told that engineering is considered a stepping-stone to a "real" career; older engineers are considered failures. However, I have found Indian engineers by and large every bit as excited about their careers and by this field as developers in the US.

The data is very different in the United States (which closely mirrors Western Europe). In the US engineers are 43 years old on average (median of 44). That's awfully close to the center of a career that begins around 21 years and ends with retirement at 65. In fact, it's surprisingly close as one would assume some attrition into management and sales with the advance of years. But the data makes sense if one assumes the normal older drift away from engineering and fewer young people entering the field.

And that seems borne out by the data. 25 Americans indicated they are 25-34 years old, 43 are in the 35-44 category (mislabeled as 55 and over), 35 have coasted into the middle-age 45-54 bracket, and 11 report being over 55. It's a shame we don't have this data for prior years, but I would assume that a decade or so ago the younger engineers would be overrepresented.

This is the inverse of the situation in India where 76% of the respondents are under 34.

It's wise to take every survey with a grain of salt, but like impressionistic paintings that indicate at least the fuzzy outlines of a story. This data aligns well with other data points I've seen. It seems Americans have a declining interest in, at the least, embedded engineering, though the salaries are very attractive.