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As a preface for what we’re about to explore, here’s the methodology that we followed to collect our data. Our data is sourced from glassdoor.com, and all of our salaries have either high or very high confidence, so we have omitted any low confidence or unconfirmed data. Unfortunately, glassdoor.com does not have a comprehensive list of every position at every company in every city. There will be some positions missing, and some cities that are not included because we don’t have enough data. Of course depending on which city you work in, the cost of living may be higher resulting in a higher pay grade to compensate. The top three salaries (indicated by the blue highlight) is simply the highest pay relative to the other positions/other cities. We did not factor in cost of living when drawing this comparison. We have another chapter that discusses salaries and locations, so I encourage you to go check it out. The conversion rate we will be using from CAD to USD is 0.71, as of April 2020. We have separated the salaries into three sections as given by glassdoor.com: base salary, bonus salary, and total salary. Entry level salaries are referring to 0-1 years of employment. Now let’s get into comparing salaries!
There is a wide range of positions, and thus salaries, when it comes to non-entry level positions (e.g. from associates to partners). Therefore we will be focusing on entry level positions to make our comparison across the industries. For the salaries that are in CAD, we have converted them to USD, so the following graphs you see in this chapter are in USD. There will be an attempt to keep salaries within the same city or country, however if we have to use data points outside of that city or country, there will be a note saying so.
In investment banking it looks like the highest paying position would be a trader at a firm, however that’s only because it has the highest average bonus salary. An investment banking associate has the highest base salary, so even though it seconds traders in total salary, it can be considered the most “stable” job option.
* Associate consultant and accountant are salaries based in Toronto converted to USD
At a first glance, it looks like associates in consulting firms make the most money out of the other positions, however it’s due to their bonus salary being the highest. Consultants make the highest base salary, so it’s also a more “stable” option. The least paid in consulting entry positions are associate consultants and accountants.
Tech has their product manager position sitting at the highest average salary in entry level positions. Even though the average bonus salary is quite high, the average base salary is still the highest among the other positions shown. American software engineers seem to make more than Canadian software engineers, but again that could be due to a difference in costs of living that would result in more monetary compensation.
Overall, it’s clear that tech has the highest paying entry level positions. Both (American) product managers and software engineers are paid the most out of all the positions including those in investment banking and consulting.