Salaries for Software Engineers are On FIRE!

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In my post “Your Plan to Achieve Financial Independence“, I provided some options for Software Engineers to increase their income. Out of the available options, I believe that the best one on a risk-adjust basis is to transition to a company that highly compensates them.

Today, salaries for Software Engineers are on FIRE! The typical example is FAANGM (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google, Microsoft), but this is just a subset of these companies. Many people would be very surprised to hear that total compensation for new grads can be as high as $150k-$200k (including salary, stock and bonus), and that it can grow to $300-$400k within ~6-10 years (Senior Engineers) and to $500-$700k within ~15-20 years (Principal/Staff Engineers). In this post I want to provide some more insights to these numbers.

Computer programming is pretty much guaranteed income. I’m good at it, and I like it.

Andy Weir

Compensation data from http://levels.fyi

Corporate compensation data is a very well kept secret in the industry. Companies do not share their compensation ranges and employees do not typically publish their own salaries. So, it is very difficult to compare compensation data between different companies.

Levels.fyi is a website that allows employees to provide their compensation data anonymously. So far (end of 2019), ~17k people from multiple companies have done so. This data includes salary, stock, and bonuses. In this post I’ll be showing some of the data from that website.

Level comparison

One complication that makes it difficult to compare data from different companies is the fact that each company has its own levels and titles. Fortunately, Levels.fyi provides a tool that provides a visual comparison for each level. The tool is interactive and shown below.

Compensation

In this section I’ve included compensation data for Software Engineers working in Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Uber, Lyft and Airbnb. For each company, there are 2 graphs:

1. Left graph: Shows the total compensation for each level, as well as the split into base salary, stock and bonus
2. Right graph: Shows the variance in compensation for each level

You can find the same graphs for the companies below, as well as additional companies at the “Charts” page in Levels.fyi.

Facebook

Google

Amazon

Apple

Microsoft

LinkedIn

Uber

Lyft

Airbnb

Companies Paying more than $300k For Senior Software Engineers

Using the data from http://levels.fyi, we can create a list of companies that pay more than $300k for Senior Software Engineers. This list appeared first in the TeamBlind forum.

Company	Level	Compensation
Pinterest	L5	498k
Slack	G05	470k
Adobe	5.5	455k
Netflix	Senior	454k
Airbnb	L5	444k
LinkedIn	Staff	429k
Splunk	P4	425k
Lyft	T5	421k
Stripe	L3	421k
Tesla	P4	407k
Snap	L4	402k
Two Sigma	L4	399k
Rubrik	L5	370k
Facebook	E5	365k
Uber	5a	364k
Databricks	L5	360k
Workday	P5	353k
Google	L5	350k
Dropbox	IC3	342k
Square	L6	335k
Cloudera	IC4	332k
VMWare	Staff 2	332k
Cisco	TL2	331k
Twitter	L6	325k
Zillow	P5	323k
Tableau	Senior	321k
Docusign	P5	320k
Apple	ICT4	312k
Amazon	L6	308k
Doordash	E5	305k
Instacart	Senior	303k
Nvidia	IC5	302k
Qualtrics	L5	302k
Roku	Level 4	300-450k

One noteworthy absence from the above list is Microsoft. Indeed, in order for Microsoft employees to reach $300k of total compensation, they need to reach the Principal band, i.e. level 65 or even 66.

Top Pay by Levels in 2019

Levels.fyi has also shared a report showing the top 5 highest-paying employers for each level in 2019. Compensation figures that follow reflect median total yearly compensation including salary, stock, and bonuses.

Entry-Level Engineer (I): 0-2 years of experience

Engineer (II): 2-5 years of experience

Senior Engineer (III): 5+ years of experience

Staff Engineer (IV): 10+ years of experience

Principal Engineer (V): 15+ years of experience

Compensation data for Software Engineering Managers, Product Managers and Technical Program Managers

In most companies, the compensation for Software Engineering Managers is approximately equal to that for Software Engineers in the same level. The relative compensations for the other ladders depends on each company. As you go down the list with the roles for each company, there is 5-10% decrease in total compensation, assuming same level and same performance (e.g. the total compensation for a Technical Program Manager at Google is 5-10% higher than the total compensation of a Program Manager at Google).

1. Amazon
   1. Software Development Manager and Software Engineer
   2. Technical Program Manager and Product Manager – Technical
   3. Product Manager
   4. Product Marketing Manager
2. Google
   1. Technical Lead Manager, Engineering Manager, Software Engineer
   2. Product Manager
   3. Technical Program Manager
   4. Program Manager
   5. Product Marketing Manager
3. Facebook
   1. Engineering Manager
   2. Software Engineer
   3. Product Manager
   4. Technical Program Manager
   5. Product Marketing Manager
4. Microsoft
   1. Engineering Manager
   2. Software Engineer and Program Manager
   3. Product Marketing Manager

Additional information

• Learn about the differences within each role: “What are the differences between Product Managers, Program Managers, Engineering Managers and Marketing Managers?“
• Learn about the differences between the top high-tech companies: Inside the Culture of the Top Tech Companies
• Levels.fyi has compensation data for Software Engineers, Product Managers and Software Engineering Managers

Interview preparation guides

If you are interested in switching to a higher-paying role, then you will find lots of great information in the following interview preparation guides:

• How to Prepare for Software Engineering Interviews
• How to Prepare for Product Manager Interviews
• How to Prepare for Technical Program Manager Interviews

Are you interested in more detailed data? Search the levels.fyi database directly!