How to Research Your Market Rate in Tech

Your market rate is not what you hope to earn. It is what companies like yours pay people doing comparable work at comparable scope.

That distinction matters. A raise conversation goes badly when it sounds like a wish. It goes much better when it sounds like a calibration problem: “Based on my scope, level, location, and current market data, I believe my compensation is below range. I’d like to discuss an adjustment.”

Here is how to get there without cherry-picking one flattering salary screenshot from the internet and embarrassing yourself.

Start with the right definition of market rate

In tech, market rate is a range, not a number. It depends on role family, level, scope, location or pay zone, and company type.

Role family means the kind of work you do: product management, backend engineering, design, data analysis, recruiting, account management, finance, operations, chief of staff work, and so on. Level captures whether you are associate, mid-level, senior, staff or principal, manager, director, or executive. Scope reflects the size, ambiguity, and business impact of the problems you own. Location still matters because remote work does not always mean location-neutral pay. Company type matters too: a large public tech company, late-stage private company, early startup, public SaaS business, agency, marketplace, fintech, or hardware company may all pay differently.

If you compare your mid-level product role at a Series B company to a principal PM offer at a giant public company, you are not researching. You are browsing real estate listings for castles.

Your first job is to define your comparison set tightly enough that the data means something.

Map your level before you look at salary data

Most bad salary research starts with the wrong level.

Titles are noisy. One company’s “senior” is another company’s “mid-level.” A “lead” might mean team lead, technical lead, people manager, project owner, or just “we ran out of titles.”

Before collecting numbers, write down your actual level in plain English:

• What decisions do you make without approval?
• Do you own tasks, projects, programs, systems, customers, revenue, or strategy?
• How many teams depend on your work?
• Are you executing a roadmap, shaping it, or setting it?
• Do you coach others? Manage them? Influence leaders?
• What happens if you are wrong?

Then compare that scope to your company’s leveling guide if one exists. If it does not, use public leveling references and job descriptions. Levels.fyi is especially useful for tech compensation because it organizes many roles by level and total compensation, not just base salary.

Do not skip this step. Asking for “senior” pay while your manager sees you as mid-level creates a different conversation: not “pay me more,” but “what would it take to be calibrated at the next level?” That can still be productive, but it is not the same ask.

Build a compensation dataset, not a vibe

Aim for 10–20 relevant data points if possible. More can help, but relevance beats volume.

Use a mix of sources: public salary databases, job postings with pay ranges, recruiter conversations, offer data from peers you trust, industry compensation reports, and government labor data for broad grounding.

For broad occupational context, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is stable and useful. It will not tell you what a senior lifecycle marketer at a venture-backed fintech should earn in equity, but it can keep you anchored when internet salary discourse gets loud.

For startups, look for sources that separate cash and equity. Carta’s compensation research, including its startup compensation data, can help because startup pay is often a trade between salary, option grants, risk, and upside.

Create a simple spreadsheet with these columns:

• Source
• Company or company type
• Role
• Level
• Location/pay zone
• Base salary
• Bonus or commission
• Equity value or grant details
• Total compensation
• Notes on relevance

Then tag every row as high, medium, or low confidence. A verified offer from a peer in the same role and level is high confidence. A self-reported number from an anonymous forum with no location or level is low confidence. It may still be useful, but it should not drive your ask.

Compare total compensation, not just base salary

Tech compensation is often a bundle. Base salary is only one part. Annual bonus, commission or variable pay, equity refreshers, new-hire grants, promotion grants, benefits, severance terms, retirement match, remote-work stipends, PTO, and flexibility can all change the value of a package.

For sales roles, on-target earnings matter. For startup roles, option terms matter. For public-company roles, equity vesting and refreshers matter. For operations and corporate roles, bonus targets and promotion velocity may matter more than a small base difference.

Base salary is the cleanest number to discuss in a raise conversation, but it is not the whole picture. If your company cannot move base much, you may still be able to negotiate bonus target, equity refresh, title, scope, promotion timing, or a written compensation review date.

Still, do not let “total rewards” become fog. Companies love fog. Convert everything into annualized value where possible.

Use job postings carefully

Pay transparency laws have made job postings more useful, but postings are still imperfect.

Some ranges are enormous. Some describe the entire band across multiple locations. Some include roles that are technically similar but different in scope. Some list base salary only. Some are aspirational. Some are stale.

Still, job postings are valuable because they show what employers are willing to advertise publicly. Search for your role title plus adjacent titles. For example:

• “Senior product marketing manager salary range”
• “Data scientist II compensation remote”
• “Staff product designer pay range”
• “RevOps manager salary SaaS”
• “Engineering manager platform compensation”

Save postings that match your level and company type. If a competitor is hiring someone with your responsibilities at a visibly higher range, that is useful evidence. You do not need to threaten to leave. You simply need to know the market.

Talk to recruiters without wasting everyone’s time

Recruiters can be excellent market-rate sources if you ask direct questions.

Try this:

“Before we go too far, can you share the expected compensation range for this role, including base, bonus, and equity? I’m currently benchmarking roles at this scope.”

Or:

“I’m not actively interviewing yet, but I’m trying to understand market compensation for senior data roles in B2B SaaS. What ranges are you seeing for candidates at this level?”

Some will answer. Some will dodge. Some will ask for your number first. Fine. You are not there to win every exchange. You are collecting signal.

If you do interview, treat external offers carefully. An offer is the strongest market data you can get, but using it as a blunt instrument can damage trust. The better version is: “I enjoy working here and would prefer to stay, but I now have clear market evidence that my compensation is below range. Can we discuss a path to close the gap?”

Separate market value from performance

This is the part people muddle.

Market rate answers: “What would someone like me likely be paid elsewhere?”

Performance answers: “Have I earned more here?”

You need both.

If you are under market but performing poorly, your manager may not fight for you. If you are performing well but already paid above market, a raise may be harder. The strongest case combines external compensation data with internal evidence: impact, scope growth, retention risk, and consistency.

Bring receipts. Show revenue influenced, costs reduced, customers retained, systems improved, launches shipped, incidents prevented, hiring or onboarding impact, cross-functional leadership, and work you now own that was not in your original role.

Then connect the dots: “My scope has grown from X to Y, my impact has been Z, and the market data I gathered suggests my current compensation is below the range for this level.”

Choose a target range before the raise conversation

Do not walk into the meeting with “I’d like to be paid fairly.” Fairly is not a number.

Define three numbers:

• Current compensation — base and total comp.
• Market range — your researched low, midpoint, and high.
• Ask — the adjustment you want.

Your ask should usually be a range or a specific target with rationale. For example:

“Based on the data I’ve collected, comparable roles appear to cluster around $X–$Y base, with total compensation around $A–$B. Given my current scope and performance, I’d like to discuss adjusting my base salary to $X and reviewing equity during the next cycle.”

If you want help turning your research into language that does not sound awkward, Engineering Growth has a free salary calculator and negotiation script you can adapt.

Avoid the classic mistakes

Do not use one outlier as your benchmark. There is always someone making more money on the internet. There is also someone exaggerating.

Do not compare across levels. A staff engineer, senior product designer, enterprise account executive, and director of data may all have “seven years of experience.” That does not make them equivalent.

Do not ignore location. Even remote companies often use pay zones.

Do not overvalue private-company equity without understanding strike price, preferred share price, exercise window, dilution, and liquidity odds.

Do not make it personal. “I need more money” may be true. It is not the company’s compensation framework.

And do not wait until you are angry. The best raise conversations are calm, prepared, and boring. Boring wins.

Turn your research into a decision your manager can support

The point of market research is not to prove your company is evil. The point is to make the decision easy for your manager to support.

Managers need language they can take to HR, finance, and leadership. Give them that language: clear level, clear scope, clear performance, clear market range, clear ask.

If the answer is no, ask for the mechanism:

• “What would need to be true for this adjustment?”
• “Is this a performance issue, level issue, budget issue, or timing issue?”
• “Can we set a written review date?”
• “What specific outcomes would justify the adjustment?”

A vague no is not useful. Convert it into a plan or a signal.

If there is no plan, no timeline, and no willingness to engage with market data, you have learned something valuable. Your market rate may be easier to get from the market.

Resources

• Engineering Growth salary resources
• Engineering Growth community
• Levels.fyi salary data
• BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook
• Harvard Business School: 15 Rules for Negotiating a Job Offer