Evolving Landscape for Software Career Transitioners: A Three-Year Review of Capstone Data

Introduction

I finally had some time to put together and publish our 2022 Capstone salaries. 2022 heralded a major shift for folks transitioning into software. As the journey becomes increasingly intricate, this article seeks to shed light on the evolving dynamics, help prospective and current Capstone participants make informed decisions, and provide some insight into the larger job market for early career software engineers. Particularly at Launch School, the path can be prolonged, making it imperative for us to articulate the longer-term implications of current market conditions.

I’m going to throw a lot of data out there in this article. My goals for sharing this data is to help Launch School students reduce risk, update expectations, and make better individual decisions.

Recap of Trends

Analyzing US Capstone salary data spanning three years, a distinct pattern emerges. Although salaries have remained relatively stable, the duration to job acceptance has seen a notable surge.

• Salary: Generally stable, with slight fluctuations.
• Duration: A marked increase over the years.
• Capstone Experience: The job-seeking phase has become more prolonged.

US Capstone Average Salary and Duration for Last 3 Years

One note: data in this article are US-based Capstone salaries and do not include:

• Capstone participants who accepted offers outside of the US
• Capstone participants who did not receive an offer. See the Launch School Salaries page for full data.

Another thing to keep in mind is that when listing, for example, 2022 salaries, these are not “all offers that occurred in 2022”. Instead, it’s offers accepted by Capstone participants who enrolled in one of 3 cohorts in that year. The actual offer could have occurred the following year. For example, the Fall 2022 cohort starts their job hunt in January 2023, but their data will be included in the 2022 report. This is also why this report took so long: we have to first wait for the Fall 2022 cohort to conduct a 180-day job hunt.

Let’s get on with the data.

Visualizing Salary Trends

Let’s take a look at a scatterplot of salary data for the past 3 years.

Observations:

• The scatterplots highlight an increasing duration to job acceptance across the years. You can almost see the 2022 data start to spread out.
• Most candidates still seem to secure offers within a 90-day timeframe.
• There is a detectable increase in the length of time it takes for Capstone participants to land a job.

Shifting Salary Distribution

On our Salaries page, we break down base salary numbers into four groups, which gives us insight into how salaries are distributed.

Looking at this distribution over the years, one can almost feel a shift from a top-heavy distribution in 2021 to a more even distribution in 2022.

Despite this shift in salary distribution, the general sense I get in speaking with Launch School students is that people are more anxious about the job hunt duration. Capstone salaries are pretty high and a decrease there doesn’t have as much of an impact as a prolonged job hunt.

Let’s take a deeper dive into the job hunt duration.

Diving Deeper into Duration

A box plot serves as an effective tool to understand the dispersion and skewness of the duration data.

We can also look at how the standard deviation for duration has changed over time.

Observations:

• Duration to accepted offer had a marked increase for 2022.
• On top of that, a rising standard deviation across the years indicates increasing variability in job-seeking durations.
• The increase in outliers for 2022 implies more risk for job seekers for that year compared to previous years.

We know the market shifted in 2022 and this data bears that out by way of longer job hunt duration with more variability.

Let’s now look at individual cohorts in 2022 to try to see how much things changed throughout 2022.

Zooming in to 2022 Cohorts

First, let’s see the 2022 data split by cohort.

Note that the Fall 2022 cohort started their job hunt in January 2023.

And let’s also see the cohort data as scatterplots.

Just glancing at the charts, the data for the Fall cohort is obviously more “squashed down” and “spread out”, showing the effects of a down market. For example, there was only 1 salary over $140k for the Fall cohort. That said, despite facing down the most challenging job market in a decade, Fall cohort graduates produced very commendable results, which is a testament to their fortitude and Capstone.

So what do we do with all this data and these charts? A relevant question, to my mind, is whether we’re at the bottom of a dip or are we on a continued downward slope? Or something else?

Looking Ahead

Early 2023 data suggests a continuation of the trend observed in late 2022, except with far more robust salary figures. As of the 90-day mark for the Spring 2023 cohort:

• Percent of cohort that has accepted offer: 56%
• Median Salary: $132,500
• Mean Salary: $123,290

A year ago, the vast majority of Capstone participants had accepted offers at the 90-day mark. While the duration data for the Spring 2023 cohort is behind pace compared to previous years, the salary results remains very strong.

This suggests a bifurcation of the job market for Launch School graduates. Our historical Capstone sweet-spot of intermediate roles is diminishing, pushing candidates either towards junior/entry-level roles or making them compete for senior roles.

Of course for Capstone, we are taking the latter option. The fact that we can compete for intermediate to senior roles is validation for the Capstone program. It will now just take longer in this market.

What it means for Capstone

• Guidance: The standard advice of an expected post-Capstone 3-month job hunt must be revisited. Based on the scatterplots, we need to ask people to prepare for up to 6 months of job hunting. And in some outlier scenarios, perhaps even longer. While most people are still accepting offers within 90-days, it’s my job to help people prepare for “just in case” scenarios.
• Admissions: Besides technical excellence, emphasis on perseverance, emotional stability, and positivity becomes even more crucial. A job hunt is emotionally draining and so it’s important to admit participants who can be successful during Capstone and during the job hunt. For Capstone, admissions happens not only at the very end but also throughout Core. To this end, we’re going to add more opportunities for coaching and feedback throughout Core by way of behavioral interviews.
• Financial Aid: Capstone participants have access to loans with Launch School to help them with expenses during Capstone. Going forward, we’ll offer additional no-fee loans to US-based Capstone participants who are still job hunting after 90 days.
• Transparency: In the face of uncertainty, it’s more important than ever to be transparent about what we’re seeing. No marketing hype can mask the current job market. I’ll do my best to share data to help people make sound decisions.

Conclusion

My hope with this article isn’t to demoralize anyone. I want to face reality with data so that we can be prepared for it. I don’t think effusive hype will change anything, but we can work harder, aim higher, and be more prepared if we know where the bar is and what the current market conditions are.

In the past, we were able to say “the vast majority of Capstone graduates land six figure jobs within 3 months”. Now, we have to revise it to “vast majority of Capstone graduates land six figure jobs within 6 months.” This changes the calculus for participating in Capstone, but I believe it’s still the best option available for career transitioners. Three months of additional opportunity cost is a lot, but when you hop on the right career curve, I’m confident Capstone graduates can make that back.

I hope this data helps you make more informed decisions no matter where you are on your journey. Good luck!