Salary Theater and Industry Arithmetic

Evening, colleagues.

Two fresh articles on the salary market. Boston Link with its academic tone and Lenkep, who speak directly. Together, this isn't analytics, but an honest power diagram.

Boston Link writes that average raises are about five percent. It used to be twice that. The iGaming industry is transitioning from youth to adult phase: at the top, CEOs and C-level have it made, at the bottom, juniors are optimized with offshores and automation. The middle layer? It's been cut long ago so presentations can say "flexibility." This relates to attention economics and how marketing strategies need to account for real business structures.

In iGaming today, two economies exist. The first lives in investor presentations, the second—in HR correspondence collecting resumes to replace those who yesterday were still the "dream team."

Lenkep confirms: companies are becoming flat. Seniors stay, juniors sit cheap in a convenient timezone, middle management dissolves. What used to be called an "experienced specialist" is now replaced by the word "automation of distributions."

Where the Real Imbalance Is

• Marketing and creative. Head of Marketing gets conditional hundred thousand, the designer who makes the entire brand facade—three to four times less. Not because they're weaker, but because the budget is closer to the marketing chief than to the one working with a mouse.
• Operations. Operations directors grew from people who once could open Excel and not lose a contract. Today they have the title "Chief of Operations" and a six-figure salary, though the work is the same: keep email in order and respond to messenger on time.
• Traffic. Those "Head of Performance" grew from students who clicked buttons in ad accounts. Now they have a team of juniors and conditional "strategists," but in the end, the same accounts and the same sleepless nights decide everything.

HR loves to write about "culture," where every media buyer is a brand ambassador. In photos, a smiling team, and the next day, half those faces are already in interviews with competitors.

Why We Need These Reports

To see once more: at the top, they add zeros, in the middle, they count pennies. One half of the market discusses which currency to receive bonuses in, the other looks at the store receipt and understands that the happiness index is a joke.

There's sense in reading all these reviews. They show that the industry isn't aging, but molting. We still rewrite LinkedIn, now there are more numbers and less romance. If someone thinks a new title is recognition, look at what people under beautiful positions do. Often it all comes down to sitting closer to the budget and not forgetting to repost the internal corporate post on time.

So when a new position appears in the system, don't rush to celebrate. First ask where the money stands in this pyramid. Everything else is decoration. If you want truth, look not in the report, but in the messenger between the founder and the head of marketing. That's where the real arithmetic is.

Arithmetic never betrayed the market. It shows who adds zeros and who counts bonuses at the end of the month.