Salary Snapshot - Software Engineering Leadership

Let’s Talk Money!

As a recruitment partner to many top Canadian tech companies, we’ve talked with hundreds of high-growth start-up and scale-up leaders about their experiences, aspirations, motivations, and of course…their compensation!

When setting the salary range for a new role, clients always ask, “What are you seeing in the market right now for a role like this?” Great question - and we have answers. So let's pull back the curtains and share some salary insights to help you create a competitive compensation package for your next big hire. Or, if you’re on the hunt for a new role, we hope you’ll find this data useful in the negotiation process.

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TEASER:
Here are some of the interesting stats you’ll find in this snapshot:

• Total compensation for Software Engineering Managers has grown 16.4% since 2021, now averaging $192K.
• VP Engineering leaders now earn a median of $275K, with outliers reaching north of $500K.
• Compensation across all leadership levels increased by an average of 8.5% since 2021, reflecting a cautious but steady market recovery.
• While 2024 saw a focus on commercialization and conserving runway, early 2025 has brought a resurgence in product and engineering investments, signalling renewed focus on building new technologies.

What are you looking at?

This data represents current compensation (CAD), volunteered by trusted leaders and managers, aggregated at the 25th, 50th and 75th percentiles.

Data was collected by the Artemis team through interviews, recent search data, and insights from our network of software engineering leaders in SaaS startups or scale-ups based in Canada. Data points were collected between January 1, 2024 and April 15, 2025, supplemented by responses from our 2024 annual salary survey. Both direct interview insights and survey responses are included; no external third-party survey sources were used in this analysis.

Deeper Dive

The structure of compensation plans for Software Engineering leaders varies widely depending on company stage, size, and business model. However, most are base-heavy, supplemented by a bonus and/or equity component.

At the executive level:

• Variable (bonus) components for engineering leaders typically range from 20–30% of total cash compensation.
• In earlier-stage companies, equity often offsets lower cash compensation, with meaningful upside potential tied to company growth or exit events.
• In later-stage or public companies, larger total compensation packages are often bolstered by RSU (Restricted Stock Unit) grants, providing more immediate and tangible value than stock options.

For clarity, all compensation figures shown in this snapshot are presented as total on-target earnings (OTE), combining base salary and expected variable/bonus components, to best reflect the full earning potential associated with these leadership roles. 

Compensation packages for Software Engineers and Leaders have grown by 8.5% on average across all levels since 2021. While this marks a strong increase, it also reflects a shift in the market:

• 2021 was a period of unprecedented salary growth, driven by a combination of record VC funding, aggressive scaling across the tech sector and the removal of many geographic salary influences with many roles becoming fully remote.
• Since late 2022/early 2023, companies have adopted more conservative and sustainable growth strategies, focused on operational discipline over rapid expansion.
• As a result, compensation growth has moderated, moving from “growth at all costs” to a more disciplined, selective market.

At the leadership levels:

• Software Engineering Managers have seen the strongest pay gains, with a 16.4% increase since 2021, reaching an average OTE of $192K.
• Director-level leaders saw more modest growth, with a 2.7% increase to an average OTE of $262K.
• VP-level leaders experienced a 6.5% increase, now averaging $294K OTE, with outliers reaching as high as $553K.

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Compensation levels at the most senior levels, have a wide variability, with our data showing a span from $230K to $338K. We know that this is largely influenced by company size, growth stage, and the nature of the role. For example, a leader of a large team at a public company will likely be at the upper end of the range, while their peer at a seed-stage start-up likely has a lower salary that may be offset by equity. Every company has a unique compensation philosophy that is also reflected in the data. The decision to pay at or above the market rate is influenced by numerous factors and is a strategic business decision.

Looking Ahead
As AI tools become more deeply integrated into the engineering process, we’re already seeing teams becoming leaner and more efficient, particularly in early- and mid-stage companies.

Rather than fueling headcount growth, these advancements may shift demand toward more strategic, senior-level engineering roles -  those focused on architecture, systems thinking, and AI integration. As a result, we expect future wage growth to concentrate at the senior and executive levels, where impact and decision-making carry increasing weight in leaner team structures.

Demand for Talent

In 2023 and 2024, with low VC dealflow, we saw company investment shift away from product development and toward commercialization efforts.  Rather than expanding product lines, companies focused on stretching runway and repackaging existing products, prioritizing sales, customer success, and revenue generation to appeal to more cautious investors.

This translated into leaner engineering teams and fewer net-new technical roles, especially for early-stage or growth-stage startups adjusting to a new funding environment.

As we move into 2025, there are early signs that the pendulum is swinging back:

• We’ve seen an uptick in product and engineering leadership searches, indicating renewed investment in building new products and technical strategies.
• Companies that successfully stabilized GTM operations are now reallocating resources toward product innovation and competitive differentiation
• As AI adoption accelerates, and security, compliance, and user experience become critical drivers of value, engineering excellence is taking center stage again.
  

Despite fluctuations in hiring volumes, the gap between supply and demand for top-tier engineering leaders persists, keeping salaries resilient.

We’ve seen these factors continue to drive this demand:

• Everything is Tech: The need for technical solutions across all industries continues to expand, fueling demand for developers and technical leadership.
• Leveraging AI Advancements: Strong CTOs and engineers are critical to building, managing, and optimizing AI-powered solutions.
• Cybersecurity: Growing threats and evolving regulatory environments place pressure on companies to invest in secure and scalable software systems.
• Solving Problems for a Complex World: Rapid changes in consumer expectations, global markets, and governance require continuous product evolution, and strong engineering leadership to deliver it.

What’s behind the data?

Our snapshots provide valuable and current insights, derived from a select sample of individuals with verified and noteworthy experience in successful Canadian companies. This data, gathered from our recent searches, offers a more focused and relevant perspective than standard salary surveys.

This Salary Snapshot represents 228 data points. Each source is an individual who we deem a promising candidate for a role within a high-growth tech company. Most are gainfully employed and many were recommended as exceptionally talented. As a result, our salary numbers might be skewed towards the top of the range.

We elected not to show compensation figures related to equity or options. Though this was a significant aspect of the comp package for many execs, it’s often tough to put an annual dollar value on equity.

For privacy reasons, we will not disclose any specific information that could reveal the identity of an individual or their employer.

Sharing is caring!

In the dynamic landscape of employment, salary data transparency acts as a transformative force, benefiting both employers and job seekers alike. For employers, it provides a strategic advantage by aligning compensation packages with industry benchmarks, fostering equity, and enhancing recruitment appeal. For job seekers, being armed with this knowledge can help you navigate your career more strategically, negotiate effectively, and make informed decisions, contributing to a more open, fair, and empowered job market.

We believe that our Salary Snapshots are an effective delivery method for this data with our 4 T’s model:

Targeted: Specializing in the tech and innovation industry, our data reflects the compensation landscape of tech companies in Canada, making it directly relevant to your world.

Timely: Unlike traditional reports with multi-year lags, our 2025 salary data is up-to-date, providing you with the latest insights.

Trustworthy: Unlike free crowdsourced data, our information comes from one-on-one conversations with candidates actively involved in searches for our clients, ensuring reliability and accuracy. 

Trim: We're agile and focused, offering a concise snapshot of current compensation trends, and avoiding lengthy reports while retaining all the essential contextual information and analysis.

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