Developer Career Paths & Salaries

Hayk Simonyan
Level Up Coding
Published in
4 min readFeb 18, 2025

If you’re trying to figure out which developer career path suits you best while also offering a great salary, this guide will help.

We’ll explore the four main career options, their salaries, and the pros and cons of each so you can make an informed decision.

Having worked in most of these roles, I’ll also share my insights to help you choose the right path.

Before diving in, it’s crucial to identify your goals. Are you aiming for financial, time, or location freedom? If you’re already a mid-level or senior developer, you can likely achieve all three. However, if you’re just starting, you may need to prioritize one. Keep this in mind as we explore each career path.

1. Freelancing

Pros:

  • Flexible schedule: You have fewer meetings and can work at your preferred time.
  • Project selection: You can choose the tech stack and projects that interest you.
  • Unlimited earning potential: If you build a strong reputation, you can scale your income.

Cons:

  • More work than full-time: You only get paid upon project completion, and hourly contracts often involve time tracking.
  • Income instability: Clients come and go, requiring constant outreach for new projects.
  • Self-marketing required: You also need some sales and marketing skills to land clients.

Freedom Level: Location and time freedom, but financial stability takes time.

Salary Range:

  • Higher-paying regions: In the U.S. for instance, remote freelancers earn around $96K/year.

Platforms to start with: Upwork, Fiverr, and later Toptal for higher-paying clients.

2. Full-Time Roles

Full-time roles can be split into 3 main categories:

a) Startups

  • Pros: High growth potential, innovative work, and exposure to cutting-edge tech.
  • Cons: High instability (90% of startups fail), requiring frequent job changes.

b) FAANG (Big Tech) Companies

  • Pros: High salary, great benefits, and prestige on your resume.
  • Cons: Slower career growth (you might work on a small feature like YouTube comments) and fixed schedules with limited location flexibility.

c) Outsourcing & Outstaffing

  • Pros: Easier to scale income as a senior developer by handling more projects.
  • Cons: Your salary is lower due to middlemen taking a cut.

Freedom Level: Generally offers financial freedom, but time and location freedom vary based on the sub-path that you choose.

Salary Range:

Tip: Check Glassdoor for salary insights based on your region.

3. Contracting

Pros:

  • Flexible work arrangements: Fewer meetings and project-based deadlines.
  • High hourly rates: Often pays more than full-time roles.
  • Scalability: Ability to handle multiple clients at once.

Cons:

  • No benefits: No healthcare, paid time off, or other perks.
  • Temporary nature: Contracts usually last 3–12 months, requiring frequent job searches.

Freedom Level: Provides all three — financial, time, and location freedom.

Salary Range:

  • Average: ~$130K/year based on jooble.org — Lower than full-time roles based on statistics, but from my experience, it’s usually higher since you’re working directly with a company with a B2B contract.

4. Entrepreneurship

Software engineering is one of the best gateways to entrepreneurship. It teaches you problem-solving and coding skills, enabling you to turn ideas into products. That’s why many developers transition into building startups or SaaS (Software as a Service) businesses.

Pros:

  • Unlimited potential: You control your income and career path.
  • Freedom: You choose projects, work hours, and location.
  • Impact: You build products that solve real-world problems.

Cons:

  • High risk: Success is uncertain and takes time.
  • Self-reliance: You’re responsible for everything — development, marketing, and sales.

Salary Range:

  • Varies widely: Could be zero initially but can scale beyond six or even seven figures if successful. Marc Lou is an example of a solo devpreneur who scaled his startups to seven figures as the only developer.

Which path to choose?

As you see, each developer career path has its trade-offs.

  • If financial stability is your priority, FAANG or outsourcing companies are solid choices.
  • If location and time flexibility matter more, freelancing or contracting might be better.
  • And if you dream of independence and building your own products, entrepreneurship is the way to go.

Want to fast-track your developer career? 🚀

Choosing the right path is just the beginning. If you want my personalized guidance, and a clear roadmap to accelerate your growth and secure high-paying opportunities, check out my developer mentorship program.

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Written by Hayk Simonyan

I help software engineers land their dream tech jobs and advance to senior roles at https://skool.com/web-dev-mastery

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