Tech Talent Salary Dynamics Q4 2024 Explained: Embedded Developer

Volodymyr Bilyk

10 January 2025

Embedded development is the hottest specialty in town throughout 2023 and 2024 and probably going into 2025 too. On the one hand, the talent demand is driven by defense tech and military tech companies – building and programming drones, missiles, surveillance systems, and other handy robotics.

On the other hand, embedded development positions are all over IoT product companies, consumer electronics manufacturers, industrial RPA, and vehicle hardware.

The following challenges plagued the specialty in the past:

There weren’t that many specialists on the market to begin with.
Almost all of them were very niche-specific and there was barely any talent cross-pollination across the industry.
Salaries were moderate at best compared to the wider Ukrainian Tech Industry and the job-to-job change wasn’t as staggering.

Things have been changing fast since 2022 and the rise of The Ukrainian military technology industry. As a result, the embedded development talent pool got a lot of new talent coming in.

That said, the actual salary dynamics as of early Q4 2024 are all over the place. Let’s look at them closer.

Entry level

Entry-level salaries at various projects range from $200-300/m for intern duties. Some high-profile high volume projects have intern salary ranges up to $500 but it is uncommon and closer to early stage junior grade.

As such, that’s mostly part-time work for students.

The whole intern thing for embedded development is a result of the need for institutionalized talent development realized in a makeshift manner.

This format allows students to learn the ropes and ease their way around the technology. Most companies apply this approach as a talent development long-term strategy.

There’s a six-to-nine-month window that can determine whether an intern can stick around and transition to low junior positions.
In rare cases, this type of employment is applied to switchers as short-term testing whether they can find their way around it. It is low cost but hit-and-miss practice mostly applied due to a shallow talent pool.

Junior Grade

Junior positions are where it gets really tricky due to grade interpretation. Let’s start with the figures.

The range starts at $500 and can go as high as $1500 or even $1700 on some projects although the $1100-1300 range is the most common median across the sources.

This kind of range for junior talent doesn’t make any sense but here we are. What’s going on?

The whole interpretation of the junior grade for embedded development positions is a giant mess. Even more so than in other software development domains due to different talent management and development strategies.

Three different varieties of junior grades have their distinct salary ranges.

- Entry-level junior – got basic skills but green and can do only menial tasks. It’s like a full-time intern but with more touch-and-go mentoring.
  - The salary range for entry-level juniors is between $400 and $900 depending on the technology complexity.
  - Most entry-level juniors simply progress to regular juniors within a 6-9 month period.
- Regular junior – fully equipped with fundamentals, totally lacking experience, in dire need of supervision. You know the ones.
  - The regular junior salary range is around $700 to $1400 depending on the organization and internal grading.
  - Usually, there’s a salary progression of around $500-600 from starting on the position until transitioning into middle grade.

Switcher junior – the most nondescript category because it can be a lot of things. We need to further differentiate two more subtypes:

- - Internal switcher – those who already work at the company but want to change careers. It is a rare occurrence, but some of the bigger Ukrainian companies provide such opportunities. It is not a common practice by miles. The trade-off usually means the salary is 50% off of the then-current salary and a semblance of a career plan and training program to follow. Companies like Ajax and GlobalLogic and also some of the Genesis projects experiment with this approach on a small scale.

External switcher – the common type. Been a pro in one thing, decided to shake things up and start anew. Got experience and skills, but exactly all there, but it is good enough to get going. Switchers are generally more valued as junior talent because of their previous experience and better cross-technology flexibility. As such – the overall external switcher junior range is a bit higher than regular juniors – starting with $800 and up to $1800 which is the lower end of middle grade for regulars.

Middle Grade

The Middle-level embedded developer talent pool is probably the most diverse tech talent pool in the Ukrainian Tech Industry outside of Java and Python. It has all sorts of tech specialists represented and none of them in quantity to satisfy the talent demand because there’s no proper education pipeline to develop new talents en masse while the talent continues to grow.

The key reason for growth is the defense tech segment. The production pipeline needs more and more resources including human resources to develop new and more intricate ways to handle challenges.

Meanwhile, the civilian consumer electronics segment, namely the IoT niche is currently at the crossroads as there are limited investment opportunities in Ukraine and the economy doesn’t allow proper business scaling. Because of that, these companies hire way less and often keep their salaries closer to the lower end of the range.

The salary range looks like this:

The regular middle-level embedded developer that started in the niche and grew into middle grade has a salary range between $1500 and $3000 depending on the technology complexity.
The median is closer to the $2200-2500 range with higher levels mostly indicating middle+ talent on the verge of transitioning into a fledgling senior-level specialist.

Things look a bit different for the middle-level switchers:

The overall salary range for the middle-level switcher to embedded developer revolves around $1300 and $3500. So it is both lower and higher at the same time.
The median is also a bit higher – bouncing between $2400 and $2700.
The reason for the difference comes down mostly to experience and learning capabilities.

Senior Grade

So, the junior embedded developer grading and salaries are a giant tangled mess, remember that? Well, senior grade came and said hold my beer. That’s how you describe the state of things in the senior embedded developer talent pool and its salary dynamics.

Why so? Unlike junior and middle levels that have specialists more or less locked in into specific tech stacks and frameworks, senior talent tends to expand and diversify their skills and certifications outwards.

As a result, over time senior talent becomes more valuable as their skills grow and their expertise broadens.

One of our 2024 salary survey respondents put it this way:

“Gotta know a lot of different things to figure out a solution. It’s not a whim, it’s a necessity. One way of doing things is generally insufficient. You can get things done, but you need to get things done better. Because lives depend on that. Because of that, different tech, different frameworks and tools, their very mechanics are vital in broadening the scope and making you see more possibilities in implementing an effective solution”.

So here’s what the senior-level embedded developer salary looks like:

Senior embedded developer skilled in one domain (let’s say C++-centric) has a salary range revolving around $3200 and $4900 with singular instances going beyond that (in case you’re wondering, the highest figure in the category was $6200, 10-year vet Python-centric).
- The most common figure constituting the core median is $3800 Q2 2024 and $4000 Q3 2024
In contrast, a senior embedded developer who can work in several programming languages/platforms (usually C++ and Python or JavaScript and Python combo or the PyCharm Visual Studio oddities), got their range prancing in-between $3100 and $5400.
- The median for this type of senior talent is around $4000.

Lead Grade

Lead-level positions are where things converge once again. The developers growing into lead positions settle into their definitive configuration with their tech stack clearly defined and centered around the specific technologies and frameworks. There is a lot less diversity even though the majority of lead-level talent in embedded development are multi-platform skilled. But all of them eventually settled into the core tech stack and went into the depths from there.

According to our 2023 and 2024 surveys and research, there are barely any lead-level embedded developers who settled into one specific tech stack at the beginning of their career and stayed at it from junior to lead or even middle to lead.

The change usually occurs either at the junior when the specialist still figures themselves out or at the middle level when they are willing to take things to another level. Full-on stack switches rarely occur at the senior level as it is more of a combination and exploration.

Because of that, lead-level talent usually goes “X-centric, well-verse in Y, handy in Z” kind of configuration instead of simply “well-verse in X & Y”. But we’re straying off the subject.

The salaries for lead level go like this:

The 1st quartile revolves around $4500.
- That’s the median in the civilian segment as of Q4 2024.
- Due to smaller scale projects and smaller teams, lead-level positions in small-scale civilian segment embedded development salary range closely follows the high end of the senior grade – figures between $3100 for small 3-5 men teams and $5900 for 10+ units.
The 3rd quartile is at $6900. That’s the long-tenured 5-6 years+ grizzled rough riders.
The median bounces around $5600-5700 figures.

What’s next?

So that’s how embedded developer salaries look like these days. You might find yourself wondering – but what about Python, JavaScript, and C++-specific embedded development salary dynamics?

Well, that’s what is coming next.