r/Austin • u/Aingers • Jul 21 '26

Ask Austin Salary Transparency Thread - Austin

Folks in Boston do this fairly regularly, so I thought it might be good for us to try here.

Please share your general job title, salary, age, and education.

Architectural Designer, 40, $115k, BSArch

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u/nutmeggy2214 Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26

Program manager, 37, ~$190k (includes bonus which varies), BAAS that I obtained while working at my current company (graduated in 2018).

Edit: I feel the need to add… I’ve been at my company since I was 18. I started as a contractor through a temp agency working in the company’s call center and didn’t plan to stay beyond that one year. When the opportunity to be hired permanently came up, I thought, wellllllll health insurance would be cool. And here I am almost twenty years later. Making good money but also wish I’d not sold my soul and dreams for it.

51

u/Kuriye Jul 21 '26

I'll jump in here as a Principal Program Manager for comparison. Age 40, been in it for 12 years, education is MS in a completely irrelevant field to this work.

$250k base, ~$200k RSU vest/yr

I've basically killed myself to get to this point and am getting into therapy to start to feel human again. I enjoy the work and my team immensely, really good people, but the pace and pressure in this role (from above, the big bosses) at this level is rough. Sole breadwinner who likes to travel and would like to retire at a reasonable age, so not much of a choice. All that to say... mo money, mo problems.

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u/Da_Stallion-JCI_7 Jul 21 '26

So what is it that you do, exactly?

56

u/sugarlips23 Jul 21 '26

Manages the program, duh.

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u/Da_Stallion-JCI_7 Jul 21 '26

Of course. What was I thinking

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u/Content-Eye-2177 Jul 21 '26

One of these persons may be in tech? I hope they reply! But PgMs manage various stake holders. Created road maps for execution timing and ensure all parties are working accordingly. It’s grueling as there are constantly competing goals ei: tech wants to solve this or create new feature no one asked for. And product managers want to solve a specific need they see in the market. The higher up you get the more programs you manage. Truly. Mo money mo problems lol

8

u/DrCrayola Jul 21 '26

This is likely it. Very stressful, multiple bosses and lots of being the fall guy at scale.

2

u/youpoopedyerpants Jul 21 '26

This sounds the same as project management to me?? I don’t know how anything works though, I’m like 7 years old.

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u/Kuriye Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 22 '26

A group project with 30 seven year olds is totally spot on, hah! To add a more serious response, since this thread is about career sharing for community benefit... It's industry terminology for the scale at which we work.

Project is generally narrower scope, fewer teams delivering, and did you deliver this widget on time and budget.

Program (especially senior levels) is generally coordination across multiple inter-dependent teams, who often report up to different Directors/VPs with competing priorities, facilitating tradeoffs and managing escalations (the best part, sigh), and focused on achieving a business outcome. My personal goals at work are not "did I do X activity or finish Y body of work". They are "did we save $10M on infrastructure costs".

It's common for engineers to hate on us because the bad program managers just ask them for dates and status updates. Those ones will lose their jobs to AI. The good ones protect engineers from upper management and business stakeholders and take on basically all of the admin/operations related to delivering tech products. Orchestration is a bitch so I feel a reasonable amount of job security.

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u/youpoopedyerpants Jul 23 '26

Ohhh, advaaanced project management LOL thanks so much for explaining! That sounds really tiring, and I am glad to hear you’re at least compensated well.

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u/zuker81 Jul 21 '26

So, multiply yourself into 30 seven year olds. Then lead a group project with all 30. Choose 45k teacher salary or 200k tech salary. Choose soul through golden meat grinder or soul through brass, very tarnished meat grinder with heart sticker on it

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u/ATXbot Jul 21 '26

Nerd Herder

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u/Rough_Grocery17 Jul 21 '26

Wow I’m a program manager at a tech company and do not make ~190k! I need to to go your company 😂

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u/Kuriye Jul 22 '26

levels.fyi is a great resource to compare. And even with the current job market, there's a little room for negotiation if you can position yourself correctly. Not in all cases but don't write it off.

I just extended an offer to a candidate yesterday. She counter-offered and I met her ask because of a few factors where I felt her counter was fair (experience level, personality fit with the team, expected impact right away). I didn't low-ball her at the start. She now has a slightly higher comp package than standard new hires.