Help! Salary expectations for mid-level UXer?
May 14, 2020
176 Comments
I just started looking at new positions, and it seems like every UX job is looking for someone with 5-7 years of experience, or someone fresh out of school. Because of that, I’m also having a hard time figuring out what the market rate would be for someone in my situation.
TLD: Based off the info below, what should my base salary/TC be?
- 3-4 YOE in UX
- Masters in HCI (aka UX research/design)
- Living in the Northeast (Boston)
- Current base salary 102k (TC ~110k)
#tech #ux #uxdesigner #tc #salaries #salary #salarycomparison #salarynegotiation #boston #productdesign #productdesigner #design #ui/ux
comments
Not trying to push you to start your own thing, but wanted to give you an option based on perspective from an outsider looking closely in. If you want any advice on how she got clients, happy to help. I helped her with a lot of Biz Dev too
With FANG, yeah sure if you went to CMU, Art Center, SVA and the likes, recruiter might put a bit more eyeballs on you, but there’s no fast track to getting a UX job especially at FB or G.
The competition is fierce in these companies. And at FB right now, they only hire senior talents for most of the teams and orgs. The way you separate yourself from the pack is to put your past/current hard work and experience on the table, tell a strong narrative of what your role and responsibilities to the impact of the products are. Look at product/people problems from the lens of the market, people, and culture, and be able to zoom in deep on the details and the experience but zoom out on the second order effects it may have on the holistic/system design and experience.
If you have 3-5 YOE, I suggest you put work into your craft and quality. How efficient and how good you are with tools especially prototyping will make a difference.
If you are in the 5-8 YOE range, starting defining what kind of designer do you want to be. What do you want to be known for? What are your superpower(s) that you know you can contribute and make impact immediately.
And if you are 8 YOE or above, you are at the cusp of tapping into leadership roles whether it is IC or Management. What is your contribution not just at the product output level but overall team and organization. How do you define the scope of the work and scale the work and set your visions and strategy. Your deeper thinkings and people influence is at a much greater needs here than your pixel level output.
If the company is smaller, they still need to compete for talent to some degree. Expect that they will target your comp somewhere between 75-85% of top of market.
At your level of experience/edu (using Amazon’s leveling), expect to get leveled around L4 or L5. L3/L4 at FB or Google. Once you ballpark those and adjust for COL you’ll get a decent sense of your market value.
Also aren’t all the FAANG interviews still just LC same difficulty as SWE but very little web fundamentals mixed in