Get what you deserve: What cloud jobs pay

Thanks to compensation consultancy PayScale, we now have salary figures for a variety of cloud jobs, with ranges for roles, company size, and years of experience.

So, what’s hot and what’s not? If you want to make the most money from your cloud job, the best-paid positions are:

1. enterprise IT (cloud) architect, with a median salary of $138,051
2. senior cloud solutions architect, with a median salary of $132,092
3. cloud solutions architect, with a median salary of $122,593
4. IT architect, with a median salary of $120,811
5. senior systems engineer, with a median salary of $106,170

As a comparison, non-architect-related jobs garner lower rates, with devops engineer at $97,135 and software engineer at $95,962.

Of course, pay is affected by geographical region. You won’t get that much of a premium as a cloud architect in the middle of the country, as you would in the San Francisco Bay Area, Austin, Boston, or the Washington, D.C. metro area. In my experience, the salaries in those premium areas run 20 to 25 percent higher than in other regions—but the cost of living increases by as much, and sometimes (like the Bay Area) even more, than the salary does.

A sad revelation from research by HR firm PayScale found that women make less than men for the same cloud jobs: the national median salary for all cloud jobs is $119,111 for men versus $101,341 for women. The data shows that the vast majority of jobs are held by men, assuming the likelihood that the respondent pool corresponds to the actual gender ratios in the industry.

And it’s not just salaries: On average, men get bonuses of $12,325 but women get just $9,745. My advice to women moving into the cloud computing field is to know what you’re worth and not settle for less.

There’s a shortage of skilled cloud practitioners, so women have the opportunity to demand—and get—equal pay for equal work. You just have to know what that equal pay is to ask for it, then ask for it.

Man or woman, know what you’re worth.

One technique I’ve used is to read the 10Q reports that public companies must file with the FTC. These public reports disclose executive salaries, which I used as a benchmark or jumping-off point for negotiations. Although you won’t find cloud architects’ salaries on 10Qs, you’ll get a sense of how the company’s salaries compare to its peers, so you can triangulate to figure out how to price yourself.

Good luck!