• Entry-level software engineers can make over $170,000 in total compensation at Meta and Google, Blind found.
  • Blind reported that Meta and Google have higher pay for entry-level engineers than Apple and Amazon do.
  • The data is based on Blind users' self-reported compensation between January 2022 and August 2023.

Engineers fresh out of college could make over $170,000 at tech companies like Meta and Google, according to recent data from Blind.

Blind, an anonymous job-posting site that verifies users' employment using their company emails, found that Meta and Google typically offer entry-level software engineers higher compensation packages than companies like Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft do.

The pay bands at the Big Tech companies are more similar for senior-level engineers.

Blind said its data is based on "hundreds of thousands of data points about salary, equity and bonus for nearly every job function, major company, industry and state." The company used data that was self-reported by its users from January 2022 to August 2023.

Watch: Bill Gates has a net worth of over $96 billion — here's how he makes and spends his money

At Meta, an entry-level software engineer earns an average pay package of $179,000, while the highest level engineers at the company take home an average of $655,000 a year. At Google, entry-level engineers collect an average of $184,000 per year in total compensation, while the company's highest level software engineers bring in an average of $655,000, Blind reported, with the caveat that it had less data from higher level staffers.

Blind shared some of the pay data from its users.
Blind shared some of the pay data from its users. The numbers and letters to the left of the pay data on the graph refer to the rank within the company for each role (for example an ICT2 is a junior software engineer at Apple).
Courtesy of Blind

Out of the five Big Tech companies, Microsoft and Apple had the lowest pay for entry-level engineers: an average of $141,000 and $142,000, respectively, Blind reported.

The Blind estimates were slightly below data from other websites that track tech pay. Glassdoor put the median total annual compensation for an entry-level software engineer at about $198,000 for Meta and about $202,000 for Google. Meanwhile, Glassdoor estimates the median total compensation for entry-level software engineers in the US across the industry is about $105,207.

The Blind report also looked at pay discrepancies among employees and found that pay varies most heavily at Amazon, but is more consistent at Apple and Google. Engineers at Meta appear to be able to climb the pay ranks faster than workers at the other tech companies.

Spokespeople from Apple, Amazon, Google, and Meta did not respond to a request for comment from Insider. A spokesperson from Microsoft declined to comment on the data.

Earlier this year, tech workers on Blind debated whether the tech industry could be doing away with $500,000 salaries.

Big Tech employees have long earned more than their counterparts at other firms. But tech recruiters told Insider that some companies were using layoffs to cut the salaries of new hires. Major tech companies have laid off thousands of staff over the past year.

Do you work in tech? Reach out to the reporter from a non-work device and email at gkay@insider.com