The Product Manager salary for a new hire in Silicon Valley is now higher than that of engineers.
Looking to find out what a reasonable Product Manager Salary is? This article will give you some statistics about being a Product Manager and what to expect in terms of salary and other benefits.
The importance of Product Managers is on the rise. According to CNN Moneywatch, Product Management is now the fourth most important profession in corporations, behind only CEOs, General Managers and Senior executives.
Twenty five percent of CEOs now have Product Managers that report directly to them. And Money magazine ranked being a software product manager as one of their top ten jobs.
In terms of salary, the importance of hiring a great Product Manager is being noticed.
According to Quartz, the highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are no longer engineers – they are Product Managers. Hired.com says that the average new Product Manager Salary is $133,000, whereas new Engineers average about $123,000.
This is likely skewed given that the job market and the cost of living in Silicon Valley is very high right now. However, another data point we can use is salary.com, which shows the salary range between $65k and $103k, with a mean of $83k. This data is for a Product Manager with 5-10 years of experience, and probably represents the market outside of silicon valley (though in the 280 Group’s experience this range is very low for five to ten years of experience – an $83k offer would be more likely for a new hire without any experience or maybe having 1 or 2 years).
There are several factors in addition to location that will affect a new hire Product Manager salary. One is getting a bonus, which increases compensation by about $5k. The other is the size of the company (larger companies tend to pay better whereas startups are giving you equity and a lower salary.)
Glassdoor.com shows a bit higher range, and is more consistent with where we at the 280 Group believe the market is based on our Product Management Recruiting business.
Glassdoor’s average of $108k is what we would expect a company to pay for a Product Manager with a few years of good experience. And it is not uncommon in markets where specific expertise and technical knowledge are required to see a salary as high as $160k.
Payscale.com shows a range similar to salary.com, with a median of $89k. Again, we believe this is a bit low unless it is a salary offer for a Product Manager who is brand new or has very little experience.
So what kind of salary should you expect?
Use these sites to do some research. Take into account the geographic location of the position, your years of experience, the market the company addresses (for example, if the company needs a Product Manager who also has a PHD in biochemistry), state of the job market overall (is it hot, warm or cold) and the tradeoffs you’ll be making working at a bigger company (generally lower risk but little or no stock equity) versus a startup (generally higher risk but a small amount of stock.
Make sure to increase your own market value.
Take a Product Management training course, become a Certified Product Manager or a Certified Agile Product Management and Product Owner.
