Los Angeles, or the City of Angels, is home to some world-renowned attractions. For example, visitors and locals alike know and love the city’s beautiful beaches, desert scenery, and booming film industry. The Hollywood area is also home to a large and growing technology industry, and it’s a great place for tech workers to live. Even though Los Angeles isn’t part of Silicon Valley, it still boasts some of the same great perks. The vibrant city pays web developers very well and offers excellent job prospects. In this article, we’ll go over the average salary for junior and senior web developers in the LA, along with how to become a developer in less than a year.
What Is a Web Developer?
A web developer is a type of computer coder who builds, designs, maintains, and manages websites and online software programs. Web developers specialize in several coding languages, the most common of which are HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and Python. While web developers often spend their time coding, plenty of creative design opportunities are available in the field too.
Programmers who work on a website’s aesthetic elements are called front end developers, and they’re backed up by backend developers, who focus on server-side development. User interface and user experience designers also focus on the interactive aspects of a website, but all web developers have strong backgrounds in coding. Next, we’ll go over what entry-level and experienced candidates can expect to make in the Los Angeles area.
Junior Web Developer Salary
Entry-level programmers in web development are referred to as ‘junior’ web developers. These individuals are skilled with the required coding languages, and they’re typically recent graduates of college or coding bootcamps. However, their limited portfolios and minimal work experience mean they generally won’t command the same high salary as seniors. Nonetheless, they still make an impressive amount of money. In Los Angeles, a junior web developer can expect an average salary of about $66,000 annually, plus between $4,000 and $11,000 in overtime and bonuses. Junior web developer salaries top out at about $80,000 in the area, but each company is different.
Senior Web Developer Salary
Senior web developers’ salaries are higher due to their expert coding skills and long work history. Most companies consider somebody a ‘senior’ when that person brings more than five years of experience to the table. Some people with shorter work histories make the cut because of a master’s degree or doctorate in a computer-related field.
In Los Angeles, a senior web developer can expect an average salary of around $98,000 annually, with top earners bringing home more than $150,000. Wages in the tech industry tend to increase exponentially with time, so stick with this field if you want to earn six figures.
How to Become a Web Developer
Web development is one of the most common tech fields, so developer jobs are available in almost every city with a tech presence. In the past, it was often mandatory for web developers to have a bachelor’s degree in computer science. That’s not the case anymore.
The tech industry realized that college degrees weren’t necessary to do the job, so they created their own type of education system to train people to code. These short and intensive programs are called coding bootcamps, and they’re a proven way to break into tech. If you’re interested in what a coding bootcamp can do for you, don’t hesitate to click the link below to find out more.
About us: Career Karma is a platform designed to help job seekers find, research, and connect with job training programs to advance their careers. Learn about the CK publication.
