What's the going rate for your front-end skills?

Consider whether you are better positioned for a local or remote role. Companies hiring locally have a smaller pool of candidates, which might help a junior engineer stand out, but will also come with a smaller salary, except in the larger tech cities. Companies hiring remotely have access to a larger pool of candidates, but also have to compete with the salary expectations of those candidates. This creates an average, lower than the high salaries of Silicon Valley, but higher than most local companies can offer. A mid to senior level engineer might make $150K working remotely in an area where local companies can only offer $65K for the same skill set and experience.

Location is a pivotal factor in determining your front-end developer salary. Regional disparities in living costs, talent demand, and market competition can lead to substantial variations in pay.

The going rate for front-end skills varies depending on a number of factors, including: Location: The cost of living and the demand for front-end developers can vary significantly from one location to another. For example, front-end developers in San Francisco typically command higher salaries than front-end developers in smaller cities. Experience: Front-end developers with more experience typically command higher salaries than front-end developers with less experience. Skills and expertise: Front-end developers with specialized skills and expertise, such as experience with specific front-end frameworks or libraries, typically command higher salaries.

Basically, businesses prosperity in any region has a great positive impact on guality and price of all services provided in that region. Likewise, for the frontend development, the income of developers is higher in regions that have successful and prosperous businesses, industries and service firms. The scope of software systems includes variety of businesses and the greater the financial capability of businesses, the higher the income of frontend developers, as one of the services in demand by them.

I wouldn't say it matters that much if we're still talking software development in general. These days it's relatively easy to find a remote job with this area of expertise and thus to work in a company paying well. But I should admit that soft skills and knowledge about the target market sometimes matter even more than hard skills when negotiating a good agreement.

The experience of participating in various important projects leads to increasing the skill and speed of the front-end developer. In important projects, employers are interested in having their work done sooner, cheaper and with higher quality. According to my experience, hiring a senior specialist instead of several juniors will meet the needs of such employers. Even in some projects that have time constraints, it is quite reasonable to pay higher wages in exchange for higher skills and experiences.

Well, this is out of doubt. And I would add that relevant experience counts twice. That's why staying up-to-date with the modern and leading edge tech is pretty important.

However, experience isn't solely gauged by years, but by the caliber and pertinence of your work. For instance, possessing a portfolio that showcases proficiency in contemporary front-end technologies like React, Angular, or Vue can provide a distinct advantage. Similarly, experience across diverse domains such as e-commerce, education, or finance renders you more appealing to employers in need of specialized solutions.

In startups, between 0-2 yrs of experience, experience counts. Beyond that, it doesn’t matter in the startup world. Skills matter. In MNC world, most places, only number of years of experience matters. Experience could further be counted only for relevant technologies. In such organisations, the job profiles are too wide and require experience of specific libraries instead of fundamental understanding.

Market respects skills, knowledge and how strong the contributor is. Nowadays skill is mattered more than experience, industry considers and requires highly skilled than highly experienced.

I cannot stress enough the importance of personal projects for learning any technology or framework. Start building projects as simple as a ToDo App or a Calculator App and slowly progress towards building complex projects like a full scale web application using free APIs. These will give an immense confidence boost and real time challenges that will help you to negotiate based on the skills.

It probably depends on the market. I have never faced any company (that I eventually worked with) that would mention anything about my education, and I am 100% self-taught and have no degree in IT or maths. But this can easily be a typical survivorship bias of mine as well. I would say that in this area relevant experience is times and times more important than education.

This matters a lot if you are a fresher. I am from a mechanical background and faced these problems to get my first job. After that, it's all about opportunities and utilisation

Although a formal degree in computer science or a related field isn't a strict prerequisite, it can significantly enhance your profile, showcasing both theoretical and practical knowledge. Furthermore, certifications, courses, or bootcamps can underscore your dedication to continuous learning and skill enhancement.

It's very important! Starting of career education states your capabilities and nothing else. This becomes benchmark of capabilities of any worker. There are only few examples where less educated with good skills get hired.

When working remotely and before negotiating with a foreign company I would recommend understanding their tax system. Sometimes it's a solid argument when you show that the company saves on hiring you that way, and that you may thus deserve a bit higher compensation. Unfortunately tax analysis tools differ from country to country, so here I cannot recommend anything universal.

Payscale offers salary reports tailored to your skills, experience, education, and location. Indeed provides salary estimates based on job titles, descriptions, and also offers job listings and reviews. Stack Overflow conducts an annual developer survey covering salary trends, technology, career progression, and education.

StackOverflow Annual Developer Survey and Glassdoor are good places to start with. However, in same organisation, for same skillset, one developer could have 10x pay of another developer- specially in a market where the previous salary is considered baseline for giving a hike. It would be wise to ask for budget before spending time in the recruitment process.

Internet and books are your friend if you use it well. It can land you in high paying jobs. There are only few school college teaches these skills so you would have learn it on your own. There paid Internet resources too like udemy, coursera and more. There should be clean understanding of what market needs and how to accumulate the skill. Angular react are the web application skills which can learned easily and get good jobs

Exhibit your proficiency through a sleek, responsive, and accessible portfolio. Cultivate professional relationships and promote yourself by participating in events, engaging in online communities, and connecting with fellow developers. When presented with an offer or contract, consider negotiating for favorable terms.

Discuss pay with your coworkers. In the US this is a federally protected right. Many factors can influence an individual's salary but employees of the same level should have similar pay. This knowledge can help you determine if you are under market, have golden handcuffs, or have been the subject of pay inequality. You can use this knowledge when searching for your next role, or negotiating a raise in your current position. Initiating this conversation may feel uncomfortable, but many will be happy to share. Try this starter script: "Hi $name, I'm trying to get a better idea of where I fall in the salary band for our level. Would you be willing to share your compensation information with me? I can share my info first if that's helpful."

Learn latest tools and technologies. Negotiate hard. Always remember that pay has several components - cash, upfront equity, ESOPs, work-life balance, ….

Understanding the market is very important subject. Study the company how it's doing, how's paying, how it's growing. Apart from that work culture is very important. It directly impacts on your mental health. There no salary worth your mental health. Start up will good when want to learn things start of your career but not for long term. Once you process the skills you need hunt for big companies. This phase you have to manage work life balance. Last last 10 yrs of your retirement you need go for stable companies.

Based on my experience, understanding how location impacts a front-end developer's salary is crucial. I've witnessed significant differences in compensation when moving between cities. It's not just about living costs; it's also related to job availability and demand for specific skills. Moreover, from what I've learned, enhancing your value as a developer involves staying updated with the latest trends, maintaining a polished portfolio, networking, and confidently negotiating when presented with an offer. So, remember to consider your location, continually improve your skills, and don't shy away from negotiation to secure the compensation you deserve.

Being a back-end and system software developer, I'm not one to speak about front-end rates. The one thing I would like to add is completely unrelated to technology. Your compensation will depend on nothing but your ability to negotiate. Your knowledge, experience, and everything else will only give you leverage in the negotiation process. Now, to keep your job at the salary you negotiated yourself into is a different ball game, where your knowledge and experience do actually play a crucial role, in addition to matters such as organizational culture and internal politics, but getting it is only a matter of negotiation and leverage, and thinking about everything else mentioned above in terms of adding leverage to your negotiations will help.