Tech World Software SchoolTWSS
0x20Lesson 3 of 10

Research levels and market data

Know what the role pays before you name a number.

20 min 5-question quiz
By the end of this lesson you can
  • Explain how levels and pay bands shape offers.
  • Gather reliable market data for a role, level, and location.
  • Use percentiles to set a realistic target.

Negotiation without data is guessing. Companies place every engineer at a level (for example junior, mid, senior, staff), and each level has a pay band - a range for base, bonus, and equity. Where you land depends on the level they assign you and your position in the band. Market data tells you what that band probably looks like.

Where the data comes from

  • Crowdsourced compensation sites that report offers by company, level, and location.
  • Salary ranges in job postings, which some jurisdictions require.
  • Your network: peers at the company or at similar companies.
  • Recruiters, who can often share the range for a role if you ask.

Compare like with like: the same level, location, and type of company. Look at the distribution, not a single data point - the median tells you what is typical, and the 75th percentile shows what strong offers look like.

Reading a set of numbers: sort them and take the middle. For offers of 182k, 195k, 205k, 210k, 224k, 240k and 265k, the median is 210k and the range is 182k to 265k. The median is more useful than the average, because one huge offer can’t distort it.

Level matters more than negotiating within a level. Being placed one level higher can raise compensation far more than any within-band negotiation. If your experience matches a higher level, it is reasonable to ask how the level was decided and whether your interviews support leveling up - before you discuss numbers.

Practice: read a set of offers

Try it

Up to 15 XP

Find where an offer sits

These are total compensation figures, in thousands, for one role at one level. Click near 300 on the chart to add one very high offer, and watch the mean move more than the median. That’s why you should quote the median.

mean150200250300350182 k - click to remove195 k - click to remove205 k - click to remove210 k - click to remove224 k - click to remove240 k - click to remove265 k - click to remove

Click the line to add a value; click a dot to remove it. Red dots are outliers by Tukey’s rule (more than 1.5 × IQR beyond the box).

Mean

217.3 k

Median

210.0 k

Std. deviation

28.2 k

IQR (Q3 − Q1)

45.0 k

n = 7

Try it

Up to 15 XP

Is this data useful?

Not all data helps you. Decide what you’d actually bring to a negotiation.

0 of 5 sortedScore 0/0

  • “Recent offers for the same level, company and city.”

  • “A friend’s salary at a different level, five years ago.”

  • “A published pay range in the company’s own job posting.”

  • “A national average across all software jobs.”

  • “A written competing offer.”

Key takeaways

  • Offers come from pay bands tied to levels.

  • Use several sources and compare the same level, location, and company type.

  • Target with percentiles, and question the level before the numbers.

Lesson quiz

5 questions · pass with 4 correct · up to 50 XP

Passing this quiz completes the lesson and keeps your streak going. Questions you miss come back in review sessions later.

Questions about this lesson

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