I was going to challenge the assumption in the question but it seems that it might actually be correct: PMs and BAs do seem to make a bit more, on average. [1, 2, 3] At least, if one trusts salary.com's figures-- I can never decide if I should or not.
Nonetheless, I don't think the salary differences there are huge, or unreasonable. While I'm passionate about the importance of excellent engineering, I think excellent project management (and to a lesser extent, business analysis) is just as crucial to a business' success. Coders (myself included) tend to focus on the technical challenges of a project to the exclusion of the "why" behind it. As an illustration, I'm reminded of the frequent articles here and on proggit about programmers who built some awesome sprocket, only to later realize that there wasn't a market or need for the sprocket.
There's also a lot of truth to lionhearted's point that programmers often aren't the best negotiators. His advice is awesome and of the best variety: encouraging folks to make themselves more valuable by actually generating more value.
Nonetheless, I don't think the salary differences there are huge, or unreasonable. While I'm passionate about the importance of excellent engineering, I think excellent project management (and to a lesser extent, business analysis) is just as crucial to a business' success. Coders (myself included) tend to focus on the technical challenges of a project to the exclusion of the "why" behind it. As an illustration, I'm reminded of the frequent articles here and on proggit about programmers who built some awesome sprocket, only to later realize that there wasn't a market or need for the sprocket.
There's also a lot of truth to lionhearted's point that programmers often aren't the best negotiators. His advice is awesome and of the best variety: encouraging folks to make themselves more valuable by actually generating more value.
[1] http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/Programmer-V-Salary-Detai... [2] http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/Business-Systems-Analyst-... [3] http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/Project-Manager-III-Salar...