How Startup Compensation Is Changing by Function

Here's how startup comp is changing right now - salary and equity across 6 major functions.

𝗢𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗹

Progress! Salaries (in the orange lines) and equity packages (in the black lines) for IC employees at L4 and L5 have risen in the last few years. Salaries are ~5% higher than they were in January of 2023 and equity packages are...well, they're kind all over the place.

𝗕𝘆 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻

• Engineering salaries are up 6% and equity up 15% today vs Jan 2023.

• Eng equity is rising fastest of any function

• AI/ML engineers in particular are seeing major gains (who could have guessed...)

• Product has kept pace with engineering in salary and equity

• Operations has only mild salary growth but quite decent equity growth

• Marketing seeing higher sals and okay equity

• Sales seeing not much base salary growth and equity still below the level of Jan 2023

• People...not so great.

𝗧𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀

Obviously this is just looking at a specific employee slice (mid-level IC to junior manager range). But the data is certainly more promising that it was the same time last year.

The big challenge: hiring. It's down across these roles for most companies, no matter if they're worth $25M or $250M. So candidates out there are probably competing with other great candidates (and a lot of them) for each open role.