Most negotiation advice is generic. This evaluator drops your base, bonus, equity, and signing onto a modelled band built from US BLS state medians, level multipliers, cloud premiums, and specialisation premiums. You get a verdict — and a counter-target — in one screen.
Base lands inside the band. Solid offer. Focus your negotiation on equity, signing bonus, or on-call rather than base.
Modelled bands are derived from state-level DevOps medians (BLS OEWS-aligned) × experience-level multipliers × cloud-platform premium × specialisation premium, with cert and on-call layered on top. This is a planning tool; verify against current Levels.fyi and offer letters before negotiating.
Every state has a different DevOps median. California sits ~17% above the national mean; Mississippi sits ~29% below. The band starts there, not at a one-size US number.
Senior DevOps lands at 1.04x-1.32x of the state median. MLOps and DevSecOps carry 20-27% premiums over General DevOps. Multi-cloud adds 12% over single-cloud.
Below 90% of band low triggers BELOW MARKET. Top 5% triggers ABOVE MARKET — usually meaning you should verify the level title. Everything in between is broken into low/mid/top of band.
The verdict is a signal, not an answer. Here is the move that usually fits each band.
Counter hard with the modelled mid as your anchor. Cite state median + level multiplier + cloud + specialisation. If they will not move materially, walk. Recruiters lowball candidates who do not push back.
Most candidates with your profile land higher. Push base first because every component above (bonus, equity, retirement match) is pegged to base. Counter at mid or 5-7% above.
Solid offer. Negotiate the perimeter rather than the centre: signing bonus, equity refresh schedule, on-call stipend, certification budget, remote flexibility. These come from different budget lines and are usually more flexible than base.
Strong offer. Accept it without a counter, or counter once gently (signing bonus, equity refresh). Pushing for above-band on base risks the offer being withdrawn or signalling poor judgement.
Verify the level title against the company's published ladder. You may be slotting into a higher band than you entered into the evaluator. If the level is right, this is a genuinely strong offer — accept and focus on equity vesting cliffs and refresh schedule.
The evaluator starts from a state-level DevOps median (aligned with US BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics for the software/systems/network families that DevOps engineers map to). For each state, the median is multiplied by an experience-level range, a cloud-platform multiplier, and a specialisation multiplier. Certifications and on-call stack on as additive amounts.
The band is a planning instrument, not a Levels.fyi replacement. Use it to anchor your counter, then verify against named-company data points (Levels.fyi for FAANG/big-tech, Glassdoor for mid-market, recruiter screens for everything else). The band tells you whether the offer is in the right neighbourhood; the named-company data tells you what specific companies are paying.