Student Coders Expect $70K Starting Salaries

Students seeking a full-time software job or internship are quite optimistic about their salary expectations, according to a new surveyreleased today (May 18) by Devpost, which polled 1,700 US students this spring at hack events it organized on college campuses. The report found that the majority of students expect starting salaries of at least $70,000.

Devpost’s report also found that more than 90% of respondents said receiving equity as part of their compensation was somewhat or very important to them.

The students may find themselves somewhat disappointed. Their expectations far surpass the $50,561 starting salary for the class of 2015, according to data from the National Association of Colleges and Employers, and it’s also higher than what computer and information sciences majors who graduated last year earned, an average of $65,849.

Survey respondents also anticipate their salaries will rise by $20,000 to $30,000 after five years on the job market—even as annual raises have become a thing of the past for many Americans. But their upbeat expectations do reflect one reality, says Devpost CEO Brandon Kessler: the surging demand for students with coding chops. “Wages for software developers are in fact dramatically going up, given the very real shortage of developers and the competition among companies,” he says.