Coding bootcamp grads earn 12% higher starting salaries than college grads: Arc Developer Survey

Coding bootcamp graduates earn 12% higher starting salaries than developers with a bachelor’s degree, a salary survey of 2,504 remote software developers shows. “Companies are willing to pay top dollar for talented developers, regardless of their formal education,” says Arc CEO Weiting Liu who led the research. “Anyone can thrive in the lucrative software development industry — as long as they have a passion for coding and continuous learning.”

Since the start of 2022, Arc, a remote career platform for software developers, has been surveying developers across the globe on salary data. The survey shows that coding bootcamp graduates outearn college grads in their early careers:

● 0-1 years of experience: bootcamp graduates earn 12% more median salary than
college graduates.
● 2-3 years of experience: bootcamp graduates earn a median of 37% more than
developers with a bachelor’s degree.

“Bootcamps have a more practical focus, while degrees contain more theory. Developers who
attend bootcamps are usually able to start working right away due to the practical experience
they gained during the intensive training,” explains Jeff Lam, Senior Recruiting Manager at Arc.

The survey also shows that self-taught developers with no formal education earn 26% more
than developers with a bachelor’s degree for 16+ years of experience. “From my experience,
self-taught developers are very passionate about development and may have a lot of knowledge
despite not having a formal education,” says Lam.

“The way we think about career development has changed drastically with the more widespread
acceptance of alternative educational paths and self-directed learning. It means anyone can
build an amazing remote career as a developer in 2022, including those without a formal
university education,” says Liu.

Please visit the full report here.

About Arc:
Arc is a radically different remote job search platform for developers. We connect developers
worldwide with tech companies hiring remotely. With 1 million developers in our network, our
mission is to help anyone build an amazing remote career from anywhere.

Weiting Liu is the founder & CEO of Arc and Codementor. A two-time YC and Techstars alum,
Weiting has spent over a decade leading tech startups and believes the future of work will
connect talent worldwide with opportunities anywhere. Weiting holds a master’s degree in
Management Science & Engineering from Stanford University.