Tech startup salaries across the US - what's changed in the past year?
We dug into Carta Total Comp data from 41 metro areas to see how their average tech startup salary has moved in relation to San Francisco rates. You can see the exact percentages for 2022 and 2023 in the columns on the right.
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1. Salaries for startup workers in the South rose up towards SF the most. Congrats to Raleigh, NC for leading the list at 12.3% bump up.
2. Every metro in Florida we tracked moved closer to SF; every metro in Texas decreased in relation to the top metro. May be due to tech startup salaries in Austin, for instance, already being higher than the Florida metros.
3. Seattle used to be at parity with San Francisco (along with San Jose and New York as the 4 top metro areas). It fell back to 96% this year.
Generally speaking, we see startup salaries as having plateaued in recent months. However, that slowdown in growth is happening at very different rates across the country. The impacts of pay transparency, remote work, and the other shifting dynamics in startup compensation continue to shake up the ranking of cities by salary.
And of course - this is just salary. Cost of living is a whole different ballgame. So while Jacksonville, FL may only pay 70% of SF rates, a tech worker may still be better off on a relative basis given how affordable rent, food, etc are.
Much more data on startup salaries, equity comp, all sorts of good stuff in our Data Minute newsletter (link in comments!)
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