How Much Do US Tech Roles Really Earn? 2021 Salary Insights Across 24 Positions

Preface

With the rapid development of top Chinese tech companies such as Tencent and Alibaba, employees enjoy generous compensation. Rumors claim Alibaba P8 or Tencent T3 engineers earn six‑figure salaries; this article compares those figures with US developer salaries.

Robert Half 2021 Salary Guide

The US tech recruiting platform Hired recently published the "Robert Half 2021 Salary Guide", which lists the 24 highest‑paying non‑executive development positions in the United States.

Industry Trend

According to Hired, average software developer compensation in the US rose from $139k in 2018 to $146k in 2019.

Top 24 Development Positions

Cloud/Network Architect : $146,000‑$174,500 (50‑75% range); 25% at $121,000, 95% at $202,250.

Artificial‑Intelligence Architect : $148,000‑$166,000; 25% $123,750, 95% $194,750.

Data Architect : $145,500‑$168,500; 25% $123,250, 95% $199,250.

Application Architect : $144,500‑$174,250; 25% $119,750, 95% $201,250.

Software Development Manager : $139,000‑$162,000; 25% $110,500, 95% $188,000.

Network/Cloud Administrator : $123,500‑$146,000; 25% $100,500, 95% $174,750.

Product Manager : $127,500‑$151,750; 25% $104,250, 95% $177,500.

Project Manager : $114,750‑$137,750; 25% $96,000, 95% $161,500.

Mobile Application Developer : $135,750‑$161,750; 25% $112,750, 95% $189,750.

Lead Application Developer : $130,750‑$156,750; 25% $108,500, 95% $186,000.

Senior Web Developer : $124,750‑$146,000; 25% $104,250, 95% $172,000.

Software Engineer : $123,250‑$145,750; 25% $103,750, 95% $172,500.

Database Developer : $119,000‑$139,000; 25% $98,000, 95% $165,500.

Software Developer : $118,250‑$138,000; 25% $97,250, 95% $165,000.

Network/Cloud Engineer : $115,250‑$138,500; 25% $97,500, 95% $163,000.

Network Developer : $106,250‑$126,500; 25% $87,250, 95% $145,000.

Frontend Web Developer : $88,000‑$102,000; 25% $72,000, 95% $136,000.

Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) : $123,250‑$150,250; 25% $100,750, 95% $199,000.

DevOps Engineer : $120,000‑$143,000; 25% $97,000, 95% $184,750.

Scrum Master : $99,250‑$116,250; 25% $77,750, 95% $137,000.

QA/Test Manager : $103,750‑$121,000; 25% $89,250, 95% $144,000.

Automation QA Engineer : $89,000‑$105,750; 25% $74,500, 95% $124,500.

Manual QA Engineer : $76,500‑$87,000; 25% $64,000, 95% $103,250.

Full‑Stack Developer : average $78,251, peak $114,000.

Conclusion

Overall, US developer salaries are comparable to those of China’s top BAT companies, though not dramatically higher. The article also references the Chinese version of the Robert Half guide.