Review of CTOs’ salaries in the Ukrainian IT industry

About the author:
Ekaterina Osadchuk— CEO of IndigoTechRecruiters , economist, professional psychologist, HRD and Development Director with over 10 years of experience.

The CTO, (Chief Technology Officer), is responsible for the strategic and technical development of the company, developing and optimizing products, as well as the productivity and resource allocation in the area of his or her responsibility. Since the roles and responsibilities of CTOs differ depending on the company size and type, salaries can also vary considerably.

Earlier, we published a review of wages for C-level employees. Let’s now go into details and consider separate positions from the survey. (This article is based on the data from CTOs working in IT companies in the country of Ukraine. )

Fig. 1. IT company’s country of origin

Fig. 2. Number of employees of IT companies

Fig. 3 Percentage of participants from outsourcing, outstaffing and product companies.

The responsibilities of CTOs can be loosely divided into three parts:
technologies, (selection and audit, management of technical risks);
business, (participation in organizational management, implementation of business objectives from a technical perspective, communication with other top-managers — as a manager, and also as an expert);
team, (coordination of work responsibilities, participation in the recruiting process, education, evaluation, etc. )

In order to succeed as a CTO, a person has to have experience in technology, (Most CTOs used to be PMs, team leads, or architects. ), as well as be skilled in management, communication, planning and so on.

The majority of CTOs earn $6000. In total, salaries range from $3860 to $8760.

Fig. 4 Overall salary range

Salaries of CTOs depend on multiple factors. I would like to stress that the items with less than 4 responses were excluded as they cannot be valid in decision making.

For instance, if only 4 CTOs said that their experience as top-manager was limited to 3 years, we excluded those responses as not being representative, and took into consideration only those with 5 or more matching responses.

In the graph below, these numbers are shown as lines; (They are often disregarded in spreadsheets. ) For example, only 4 respondents have 7 to 8 years of experience as top-managers, (the light green line on the graph. ) Such data is insufficient for objective conclusions.

Fig 5. Salary range + bonus for work experience in top management

The data shows that there is no direct correlation between a CTO’s previous work experience in top management and their salaries. CTOs with one to four years of experience all earn around $5000-6000.

Fig. 6. Relation between salary and job tenure

Likewise, job tenure doesn’t influence CTOs’ salary range. However, they start earning more as they age: for those up to age 30, the average salary is $4100, whereas those 31 and over earn $6350.

Fig. 7. Relation between CTO’s salary and age

Company type also influences wages. The highest level for this position in product companies earns, on average, $6800.

Fig. 8. Relation between salary and company type

Fig. 9. Relation between salary and the number of employees in the company

Salaries rise along with the number of employees directly subordinate to CTOs.

Fig. 10. Relation between salary and the number of subordinate employees

Apart from salary range, we were also curious to find out what motivates and demotivates CTOs, as well as some information about their working conditions.

For the employees in this position, the most important motivating factors are: professional growth (76%) and an open and friendly corporate culture (64%). Freedom in decision making and implementation ranked third (60%). Salary level was only 5th on the scale of motivating factors for CTOs (52%).

Fig. 11. Motivating factors for CTOs

As the most demotivating factors, CTOs name the lack of work-life balance (44%) and the lack of professional growth (76%).

Fig. 12. Demotivating factors for CTOs

Salary ranked 6th among the demotivating factors.

Most KPIs are related to the company’s profitability and the implementation of the department’s plan. 36% of respondents haven’t indicated KPIs related to bonuses.

Fig. 13. KPIs leading to bonuses

CTOs responded almost equally to models of work: 46% of them work in the office, while 42% work both in the office and remotely. Another 8% only work remotely.

Fig. 14. Work models

75% of CTOs are registered as individual entrepreneurs, which is quite common for IT.

Fig. 15. Types of employment

67% of respondents have their salaries pegged to the US dollar.

Fig. 16. Pegging of salary to a currency

We hope that this information will prove useful to the reader while making business decisions.

Many thanks to Vitaliy Luzhentsov for professional help in data processing.