- A four-year degree isn't necessary to achieve a six-figure salary in tech, according to a new study.
- Startups and big public companies like Google, Uber, and Apple hire engineers and product managers who don't have a college degree.
- Employees in those roles can make more than $100,000 per year.
You don't need a college degree to rise through the ranks in the tech world.
That's according to a new study out from Comparably, a company that provides compensation, culture, and jobs data about both public and private companies. Comparably combed through data from 1,800 tech employees to find out which jobs pay six-figure salaries without the need for a four-year college degree.
From there, Comparably found the highest average salaries for those jobs across all genders, ethnicities, locations, and levels of experience.
The data Comparably examined was from employees who have either a high-school diploma only, or attended some college but didn't graduate. The employees measured hail from a range of companies, from small VC-backed startups, to well-funded private companies like Uber, to public companies like Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google.
Here are the tech jobs that pay the highest salaries for employees - without the need for a four-year degree:
- VP of engineering - $178,062
- Director of sales - $165,579
- Sales engineer - $148,726
- Architect - $143,879
- Lead engineer - $132,856
- Director of IT - $122,532
- DevOps engineer - $121,262
- Director of marketing - $114,987
- Product manager - $101,421
- IT manager - $100,177
Technology is currently one of the most popular and highest-paying industries in the US. According to a recent survey, 75% of non-IT professionals would find a career in technology appealing, and the average salary for people in tech was $96,370 in 2015, according to the annual Dice Tech Salary Survey.
For those in need of some inspiration, this popular Reddit post details how one man went from high school dropout to managing an organization's servers and computer equipment as a network administrator making around $75,000 in a few years.
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