How well does a leading tech giant compensate staff?
Amid the ongoing AI talent wars, Google is paying top dollar for talent in all areas, from software engineering to design. According to data from federal filings, obtained by Business Insider on Thursday, Google is paying software engineers a range of $109,180 to $340,000 in base salary. That’s comparable to the $120,000 to $480,000 made by software engineers at Meta.
Meanwhile, Google user experience designers can earn up to $230,000 while product managers take home salaries of up to $280,000. Research scientists on Google’s staff can make up to $303,000, while the highest-paid data engineers are compensated $175,000.
Related: ‘The Market Is Hot’: Here’s How Much a Typical Meta Employee Makes in a Year
The data comes from 6,800 filings Google submitted to the U.S. Department of Labor during the first quarter of the year. The tech giant has to submit work visa data to the federal government when hiring foreign workers through the H-1B visa program, which allows highly skilled employees to work in specialized occupations.
The filings are specific to base annual salaries and do not include signing bonuses, stock options, and other forms of compensation.
The data shows that Google compensates other roles as follows:
- Business Systems Analyst: $141,000 to $201,885
- Customer Engineer: $85,009.60 to $228,000
- Data Scientist: $133,000 to $260,000
- Electrical Engineer: $119,000 to $203,000
- Program Manager: $125,000 to $236,000
- Security Engineer: $97,000 to $233,000
- Technical Solutions Consultant: $110,000 to $253,000
While Google tries to keep salary data private and refrains from announcing figures publicly, other federal filings also offer a peek into the tech giant’s competitive compensation for employees. Google submitted a report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in April, which showed that a mid-level employee made $331,894 in 2024, a 5% increase from 2023.
The same document showed that Google CEO Sundar Pichai made over $10.7 million in 2024, or about 32 times more than the median employee.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Photo by Camille Cohen / AFP
Tech companies are competing for a limited pool of AI talent, leading to compensation packages that rival those offered to top executives. Meta reportedly poached former Apple engineer Ruoming Pang with an over $200 million pay package, and offered other major Meta hires for its new superintelligence team similar compensation.
At the end of 2024, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, employed 183,323 full-time workers. Alphabet was the fifth most valuable company in the world at the time of writing, with a market capitalization of $2.16 trillion.
For the full list of roles and salaries at Google for H-1B workers, click here.
Related: Here’s How Much a Typical Nvidia Employee Makes in a Year
How well does a leading tech giant compensate staff?
Amid the ongoing AI talent wars, Google is paying top dollar for talent in all areas, from software engineering to design. According to data from federal filings, obtained by Business Insider on Thursday, Google is paying software engineers a range of $109,180 to $340,000 in base salary. That’s comparable to the $120,000 to $480,000 made by software engineers at Meta.
Meanwhile, Google user experience designers can earn up to $230,000 while product managers take home salaries of up to $280,000. Research scientists on Google’s staff can make up to $303,000, while the highest-paid data engineers are compensated $175,000.
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