What Do Ops Professionals Earn? Insights from the First Ops Salary Survey

Introduction

The first Ops Salary Survey by O'Reilly Media gathered responses from more than 650 operations professionals across 56 countries and 40 U.S. states, providing a comprehensive view of the Ops landscape, which bridges software development and IT.

Key Findings

The median salary for all respondents is $100,000.

Ops professionals at large companies earn more.

Despite long hours, over half are satisfied with work‑life balance.

21% are familiar with the Go programming language.

More than 60% of companies deploy software to production daily or weekly.

58% of companies still use traditional data centers.

Salary

Most respondents are based in the United States, with the second largest group (24%) from Western Europe. In the U.S., California yields the highest median salary at $152,000, followed by the Northeast at $122,000 and the Midwest at $102,000. Salary correlates with age and experience: under‑5‑year experience averages $51,000, while over‑20‑year experience averages $135,000. Learning automation scripting skills is linked to higher salaries.

Gender distribution is roughly 8% female and 92% male, with median salaries nearly equal ($99,000 for men vs. $99,400 for women).

Company Size

Less than 2% of Ops professionals work at single‑person firms. Among the rest, companies with fewer than 1,000 employees and those with more than 1,000 employees each represent about half of the sample. Median salary rises with company size: $88,000 for 2‑100 employees versus $118,000 for over 10,000 employees.

Company Age

Unlike other tech sectors, Ops salaries do not increase with company age. Companies aged 2‑5 years pay the highest median ($108,000), while those older than 20 years pay around $104,000.

Team Size

45% work in teams of five or fewer. Salary peaks at $102,000 for two‑person teams, drops for three‑person teams, and stabilizes around $100,000 for teams of four to fifteen. Large teams (16+ members) see median salaries of $120,000.

Work Week

Ops staff work longer weeks than typical 9‑to‑5 employees; over half work more than 40 hours per week, and many report 60‑hour weeks.

Time Spent Writing Code

13% do not write code (median salary $105,000). Those writing 1‑3 hours per week earn $95,000 median; salaries increase with coding time up to about 20 hours per week, then decline sharply.

Time Spent in Meetings

More meeting time correlates with higher pay: 1‑3 hours/week yields $80,000 median, 4‑8 hours/week $103,000, 9‑20 hours/week $105,000, and over half of time in meetings pushes median to $151,000. Only 1% report no meetings (median $35,000).

Programming Languages

Ops professionals favor scripting languages: 70% know Bash, 58% Python, 35% JavaScript, 35% Ruby. Only 30% know Java, and 18% know Perl. Notably, 21% use Go, a higher adoption than in other O'Reilly surveys.

Operating Systems

Linux dominates with 90% usage, followed by macOS (56%) and Unix (16%). Half use Windows, 15% use iOS for development, and 14% use Android.

Education

57% hold degrees in computer science, mathematics, or statistics; 43% have other backgrounds or no college. 28% have a master's degree (median salary $95,000) and 2% hold a PhD (median $111,000).

Industry

One‑third work in software (median $113,000). Other high‑pay sectors include media/entertainment ($114,000), computer/hardware ($118,000), and health/medical ($121,000). Retail/e‑commerce accounts for 11% (median $82,500).

Job Titles

Most common title is System Engineer (36%), followed by Software Developer/Engineer (19%) and Architect/Technical Lead (12%). 8% hold VP/Director titles (median $173,000). About 7% identify as Site Reliability Engineers (SRE). 13% include Ops in titles such as WebOps, CloudOps, DevOps.

Collaboration

Ops staff most frequently collaborate with Software Developers (63%) and Architects (52%). They also work with Product Managers (48%), DevOps Engineers (48%), DBAs (47%), and System Administrators (46%).

Career Advancement

Respondents aim to learn new technologies/skills (33%), change companies (20%), start their own company (8%), or retire (1%). 25% seek more interesting or important work, and 20% aim for leadership roles, which command the highest median salary ($112,000).

Job Evaluation

When rating aspects on a 1‑5 scale, 64% feel confident finding a new job, 9% rate negotiation skills highly (median $124,000), and 48% are satisfied with salary (median $107,000‑$139,000). Flexibility, work‑life balance, and development opportunities receive generally positive scores.

Scorecard

Detailed scorecards break down technology adoption by company size (1‑100, 101‑1,000, 1,001‑10,000, >10,000 employees), covering deployment speed, container usage, version control, monitoring tools, cloud adoption, private‑cloud platforms, and organizational practices such as configuration management, CI, post‑mortems, CD, microservices, ITSM/ITIL, and continuous deployment.

Survey Model

The regression model explains ~65% of salary variance. Factors include geographic location, experience (+$1,526 per year), gender (+$8,799 for males), company size (negative adjustments for smaller firms), education (PhD +$16,726), job title (e.g., Ops Manager +$9,255, VP +$42,365), and industry (education –$27,610, legal –$59,280).

Conclusion

This inaugural Ops salary survey uncovers surprising aspects of Ops roles, including high satisfaction and confidence in job mobility despite long hours. Larger companies tend to use more specialized tools and private clouds. While the data provide valuable benchmarks, they are observational and not causal; improving a single factor may not directly raise salary.

Author: 云头条 Source: http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/G3AtN3ImPNTcVqxyLRd1iA