by Jennifer Chu
May 23, 2016
Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft Developer Salaries
Which company pays software engineers more? Here's a look at tech salaries anonymously posted to Hacker News. A link to the raw data is also below.
Summary of Results
We focused on engineering compensation at Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft because there were more data points to work with. We standardized the engineering levels to the best of our abilities to compare compensation across companies for each level.
We found that Total Annual Compensation is the highest at Google, mostly due to their cash+stock bonus. For Levels 1 and 2, base salaries are comparable across the four companies. At Levels 3 and 4, Google and Facebook offer the highest salaries. Google’s cash+stock bonus value trumps all others, especially at more senior levels.
Median Annual Compensation Per Level
A Closer Look at the Data
Here’s the underlying data to the chart. You can also view the
raw data here.
Notes:
Google's T6 straddles Level 4 and Level 5, which is why it appears in each band
Bonuses and stock amounts were all annualized straight-line. In reality, Amazon's vesting schedule is 5%, 15%, 40%, and 40% over the 4 years, but we ignored this for comparison Signing bonuses were not included in the Total Compensation calculation
Another way to look at this, for example, is that an SDE2 at Microsoft might make $123,000 base with $20,000 in cash and stock bonus. The equivalent level at Facebook would be an E4 making $138,500 base and about $44,500 in bonus.
We also looked at each company to see how Total Compensation changes across engineering levels. Compensation growth is highest at Google and Facebook, while Amazon has the smallest increase. Reported salary ranges for each level varied significantly. This may reflect different seniority and performance within a level, the value of the company stock when equity was awarded, or other supply and demand factors.
Total Compensation Ranges Per Level
Breaking down compensation between Salary, Equity, and Cash Bonuses, we can see that Facebook and Google offer the largest opportunity for salary and equity value growth with increasing levels.
Median Total Compensation Breakdown
Contribute to the Analysis
We pulled this data together from a few sources listed at the bottom of this post, and we’d like to build on it and make it better. We could use more data points for the four companies, particularly at the higher levels, as well as compensation data for other companies and tech roles. This would allow us to map levels and compensation across the larger companies or see how compensation for each role changes with company growth at smaller companies.
Share your compensation:
All answers will be anonymous and posted to a public sheet for anyone to view and download. We’ll also update our findings and analyses for different companies, tech roles, etc.
Sources
About Step.com
Step.com lets software engineers and product managers find their market value anonymously. We crowdsource for them personalized salary estimates from NYC startups and hiring experts.
