According to federal filings reviewed by Business Insider, Microsoft offers base salaries for software engineers ranging from $82,971 to $284,000. While solid, these figures trail slightly behind some of its major competitors: Google pays between $109,180 and $340,000, and Meta offers a wider range, from $120,000 up to $480,000.
Beyond engineering, compensation for other roles at Microsoft is also competitive:
- Product Managers can earn up to $250,000
- Product Designers up to $208,058
- Data Scientists as much as $274,500
- Business Analysts up to $191,580
These figures are based on over 5,400 filings submitted by Microsoft to the U.S. Department of Labor in Q1 2025. These filings are part of the company’s compliance requirements when hiring foreign workers under the H-1B visa program. Importantly, the data reflects base salaries only, and does not include stock grants or signing bonuses, which can significantly increase total compensation.
Here’s a look at other salary ranges from Microsoft’s H-1B visa filings:
- Business Program Manager: $102,380 – $195,100
- Cloud Network Engineer: $122,700 – $220,716
- Customer Experience Engineer: $126,422 – $239,585
- Data Analyst: $132,385 – $205,000
- Electrical Engineer: $138,995 – $247,650
- Research Scientist: $146,054 – $208,000
- Technical Program Manager: $120,900 – $238,000
Across the company, the average Microsoft employee earns nearly $200,000 annually. In fiscal year 2024, the median pay for a mid-level Microsoft employee was $193,744, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
In stark contrast, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella earned $79.1 million in total compensation in 2024, which is 408 times the median employee’s salary. Most of his pay came from stock awards. For comparison, Google CEO Sundar Pichai earned $10.7 million last year—about 32 times Google’s median employee compensation of $331,894.
Despite its strong financial standing—Microsoft is currently the second most valuable company globally, behind Nvidia, with a market cap of $3.769 trillion—the company has recently undergone major layoffs. In May 2025, 6,000 employees were let go, followed by another 9,000 earlier this month, totaling around 4% of its global workforce.
While Microsoft remains a lucrative employer for many, the landscape is shifting rapidly—both in pay dynamics and job stability.
