Salary Survey Shows Data Devs Doing Well; Silverlight, Not So Much -- Visual Studio Magazine

Data Driverby David Ramel

Salary Survey Shows Data Devs Doing Well; Silverlight, Not So Much

Being a data development guy, I was interested in how data-related developers were faring when the recent Visual Studio Magazine Salary Survey came out, and the answer is pretty darn well, comparatively.

But, also being a Silverlight fan, I was most struck by one particular chart: "Salary by Microsoft Technology Expertise." More than 1,000 developers were asked: "What Is Your Primary Area of Technology Expertise (Have Product Knowledge and Work with on a Regular Basis)?" One line said it all:

Silverlight n/a

No one? Not one single developer was primarily using Silverlight?

It seems like only yesterday that Silverlight was the technology of choice for streaming Olympic Games, political conventions and Netflix movies.

There was a lot of angst among Silverlight developers when Microsoft emphasized new ways of developing apps for the Windows Store and Windows 8 ecosystems with the Windows Runtime, focusing on open technologies such as JavaScript, HTML5 and CSS. Silverlight developers were reassured that their skills would transfer to the new ecosystems and that they could continue to use XAML, C# and such to produce new-age apps with Silverlight's companion Expression Blend IDE. That may well be happening, but it looks like Silverlight itself is dying on the vine, judging from this salary survey. Too bad.

Anyway, back to the data devs. While the average salary for .NET developers was pegged at about $94,000, SQL Server developers reported an average salary of $97,840, taking second place in areas of expertise after SharePoint at $103,188.

SQL Server developers also ranked highly when it came to the best technologies for job security/retention, being chosen by about 65 percent of respondents, following Visual Studio/.NET Framework at 82 percent.

So, as I reported last year, data-related developers are doing all right. Congratulations, and keep up the good work!

Do you miss Silverlight? Do you feel good about your job prospects as a data developer? Please share your thoughts by commenting here or dropping me a line.

Posted by David Ramel on 01/18/2013

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