The PM Salary Spectrum: How Company Stage and Success Impact Your Earnings

There are 2 rules that govern how much you can make:

Stage and success of company

Let me explain both of these:

(Check out this 20k words guide here)

Factor 1 — Where You Work

At bigger companies, the same title earns a lot more. For instance, VPs earn:

• $10M rev/ Series A: TC $675K
• $100M rev/ Series E: TC: $750K
• $500M rev/ Series E: TC $750K
• $1B rev/ Small-Mid Cap: TC $950K
• $100B rev/ FAANG-like: TC > $2.15M

And there’s a huge difference in how liquid the earnings are at these companies.

Liquidity events are rare and capped for most private companies

Moreover, the outcomes are highly bi-modal: the equity could go to 1, or could be a multiple. It can be very uncertain.

On top of that, estimating valuation can be quite tough.

We used what the company stated as the actual value:

• Either full RSU value
• The estimated valuation minus strike price for options.

Keeping this aside, the more revenue & bigger the co, the higher the pay potential.

Factor 2 — How Successful the Company You Work at is

The chart just shows midpoints. But there’s more to it.

Colin Lernell and I found the 2 real offers from Q1 2024 for VPs in series C companies:

1. $400K base and $600K in equity
2. $225K base and $300K in equity

That’s a TC difference of about 2x, or $475K per year. So the error bars on this chart are extremely wide.

All of it matters:
- How fast the company is growing
- Tts margins
- Tts competition

But, fundamentally, the range is determined by how successful the company is.

Other Factors

Beyond these two factors, here are some other factors that come into play:

• How attractive you are as a candidate
• Company’s hiring philosophy
• Your negotiation skills
• Region

But, stage of company and success play the initial determining factors.

What Does this Mean For You?

Over your career, you can earn millions more by moving up in either stage or success of company.

While, of course — comp isn’t everything, and it’s hard to beat the early-stage impact you can have at a smaller company; it is still worth knowing.