The people who lead tech companies, fund them, hire for them, write their rules, and build the communities around them.
Top pay: highest pay, longest training
Chief Technology Officer: The top technology leader of a company, responsible for its technical strategy and engineering teams. Typical pay $240k.
Developer Advocate: Helps programmers love and use a company's tools by teaching, building demos, and speaking at events. Typical pay $140k.
Trust & Safety Policy Manager: Writes the rules for what's allowed on social media, games, and AI apps, and decides how to enforce them. Typical pay $145k.
Tech Venture Capitalist: Invests money in young tech startups, hoping a few become huge successes. Typical pay $200k.
Open Source Program Manager: Manages how a company uses and contributes to free, open-source software. Typical pay $110k.
Chief Information Officer: The executive in charge of all the technology a company uses to run itself. Typical pay $250k.
Technology Industry Analyst: Studies tech companies and products and advises businesses on what to buy and where the market is heading. Typical pay $135k.
Mid pay: solid pay, degree or apprenticeship
Tech Startup Founder: Starts a new tech company from an idea, raises money, builds a team, and tries to grow it into a real business. Typical pay $90k.
Technical Recruiter: Finds and hires engineers, designers, and other tech workers for companies. Typical pay $80k.
Technology Policy Analyst: Studies how laws and government should handle technology like AI, privacy, and social media. Typical pay $95k.
Technology Journalist: Reports on the tech industry, gadgets, AI, and the people behind them. Typical pay $72k.
Developer Community Manager: Builds and runs online communities of users and developers around a tech product. Typical pay $85k.
Trust & Safety Analyst: Investigates scams, harassment, and abuse on apps and websites and removes bad actors. Typical pay $75k.
Tech Reviewer / Gadget Creator: Tests new phones, laptops and gadgets and reviews them in videos or articles. Typical pay $60k.
Software Licensing Specialist: Tracks every software license a company pays for and negotiates with vendors to avoid overpaying. Typical pay $80k.
Domain Name Broker: Buys, sells and negotiates deals for valuable website names, like short .com names that companies pay thousands or even millions for. Typical pay $65k.
App Store Reviewer: Tests new and updated apps before they appear in an app store, checking that they work, follow the rules and don't scam users. Typical pay $62k.
Starter: fastest way in
Content Moderator: Reviews posts, videos, and images flagged on platforms and removes ones that break the rules. Typical pay $38k.
Tech Recruiting Coordinator: Schedules interviews and keeps the hiring process running smoothly at tech companies. Typical pay $52k.
Online Community Moderator: Keeps online communities for games, brands, and creators friendly and on track. Typical pay $35k.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.