Technology offers some of the highest paying and diverse jobs of any industry. While traditional tech roles like software engineer and product manager are still in high demand as CIOs struggle to find skilled IT pros, roles in sales, marketing and business development all offer healthy salaries and an alternate path into the industry.
According to the latestLinkedIn Salary data, sales roles consist of almost half of the 10 top-paying jobs in the sector, including the top spot with vice president of sales, while engineers, marketers and product managers occupy the rest. In some cases, salaries for sales, marketing and business development talent are exceeding that of engineering and technical talent, according to the LinkedIn Salary data.
"There's increasing awareness of the importance of soft skills, and they're particularly challenging to find in the tech sector. Obviously, in sales, soft skills are a must-have, so by nature of the experience needed for these roles and the scarcity, the salaries are going to be at a premium. And having that at the top of an organization is even more crucial," says Rachel Bowley, economic graph, careers insight and analytics at LinkedIn.
Based on LinkedIn Salary data collected from LinkedIn users as of March 27, 2017, here are the top 15 highest-paying software and IT jobs (excluding C-level roles), along with their median U.S. salaries.