Google principal engineer salary reddit Jan 11, 2022 · Directors of engineers at Google, sometimes called “principal” engineers at the “L8” job level, can earn base salaries of $300,000 or more. 5y in data engineering. So, compensation likewise varies greatly. Google principal engineers earn 34% more than the national average salary for principal engineers of $130,213. sg The theory also plays out that only the top 10% earners will actively post/flaunt their salaries. All of this is seconhand knowledge so take it with a grain of salt. I'm a staff level engineer and currently the tech lead of a group of 40 engineers across 6 teams. fyi data for you Meta e7 - 1. It's interesting that L4 is now a terminal level at Google because Amazon has traditionally been that way. i. I see through online salary estimate websites that most Analog IC/RFIC engineers cap out at around 140k to 150k base in North America. You should definitely focus negotiation on salary. So: 59 & 60 - Software Engineer 61 & 62 - Software Engineer 2 63 & 64 - Senior Software Engineer 65, 66 & 67 - Principal Software Engineer Regardless if you are engineer or management, making that much money is usually some sort of capped salary and given a lot of bonus and stock. Engineers usually cap in the 220k-240k base salary range, where upper management base salary caps around 300k, and both will be getting hefty bonuses, RSU, and other stock options. You're basically guaranteed to eventually hit L5 if you stay with the company, don't get fired, and perform reasonably well. They're non-management roles too. It's usually $300k total compensation, not base salary. My salary hasn't changed in a couple… you can have wildly different experiences at all these companies. View more Software Engineer salary ranges with breakdowns by base, stock, and bonus amounts. 5k yearly stock Salary, I think caps out pretty high as well. 30+ years experience. , I had the expectation that Principal Engineer would involve more hands-on work than Architect, but in practice I was much more involved in Design and Cross team concerns as a Principal, while as an Architect I was actually responsible for Proof of Concepts, MVPs, improving our Observability stack, CI / CD tools, etc. I’ll caution that my experience is all at one company, so I don’t know how much of this is company-specific. These people also gain incredible amount of leadership skills at their times there. , I don't think there's much of a difference overall. The verified Google professional reports a total compensation package of $1. Mid engineers at these places would run circles of most senior engineers. I'm as close to a principal as we get at my company without having my name on the door. not everyone will move up to Principal Engineer, and Senior Staff engineer could possibly earn a higher salary than an entry-level Principal. Senior engineer has responsibility over the team's concerns (architecture, operations, migrations, whatever it is fits within the team's span of influence. 1 day ago · Google's salary ranges from $20,100 in total compensation per year for a Geological Engineer in China at the low-end to $2,450,000 for a Product Manager in United States at the high-end. I’m at the bottom of the band, average for my role is probably a bit over $400k. S - I have 5 years exp and work in a decent org and my salary just hit 22 lakhs this appraisal cycle. A lot of lawyers normally find themselves around an engineers salary unless you get into some top tier law firm or become a top lawyer for a really big company. Staff engineers work across multiple teams (20-50 engineers). You’re average middle of the crop meta engineer makes 200-300 TC depending on area which pretty standard among the industry, so nothing crazy. The median total compensation package for a L6 at Google is $526,676. I've been taking a sabbatical and making advice videos on YouTube for fun while I chill. Business Intelligence Engineer at a FAANG 5 years Started at $120K Ended at $180K Principal Business Intelligence Engineer at startup Current Started at $270K Edit: Click here for a Google doc of my full salary/job history and career advice. If a company has both senior and lead, then senior is probably more of an intermediate role where the SWE is expected to be independent but not necessarily leading any team level projects. As well, you can be L8 at Google either as a principal engineer (T8), engineering director/manager (L8), or a mix. 3 mil/year Google l8 - 1. As a Jr Engineer (3 YoE) I used a manager’s report that EE was under resourced by ~65%, to justify the raise requests I’d already been making (due to doing the work of like 3 engineers). 121 votes, 46 comments. We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. Last summer I moved to the next level with a 10% raise, but about a month later saw the company had a job opening posted for the same level position, same location, with a base salary 25% higher than than my new salary. Amazon is well-known for limiting its base salary to $160,000 across the entire company, though the document notes that it goes up to $185,000 in the All things considered, being a software engineer in a product company is still your best chance at making super high salaries in India. 18 years experience, liscenced PE, LEED AP, Dallas TX, company has 60ish employees, MEP firm, my Salary is $175k, but 401k matching, profit sharing, car stipend, and bonus put me at $200k total compensation. Staff engineers take forever to get to since that’s pretty much the top and quant is extremely competitive due to the nature of the work. Now the Amazon recruiter says that Amazon pays engineers up to $600,000/yr at a senior level if they can pass their very rigorous interview process. Am I right? 200-250 - principal engineers (they say that they work, but in reality they have to spend 90% of time visiting different useless meetings) 250-300 - AWS, Facebook, Google and other similar companies who will like you to relocate to the area where you will never be able to buy a house. Tbh i smell a lot of bull here. E. It ranges from 40 lpa to 70 lpa which a CA may be getting after 10-15 years of experience. It's those engineers especially principal engineers at those 'silicon valley startup culture' firms. I know someone with a salary of 90LPA with 10 yrs of experience, and he works at Google, Bangalore as an IC. As for: people wear different hats and people are working non-stop? Yes. unsustainable. I'm doing the same work as before, but with more $ so don't really care about the title. Though if you make principal engineer, your base can definitely hit those numbers. I'm currently working as a Principal DevOps engineer in Austin, Tx making $145k/yr. And yes, 7 figure salaries are not impossible (though not common) for the absolute top candidates on the job market **fresh out of their PhD** -- think stellar researchers with many relevant papers in hot areas. g. Canva, Amazon, Google, Atlassian and Jane Street paying graduates salaries up to $350,000 So the best way to know if you are being paid as per market standards is to check for salary stats for your company/similar company in places like glass door or the salary sharing thread on leetcode etc. That’s just false sorry. true. Or rather, "someone who could be hired as IC7 in Google, as principal engineer in AWS etc". The buckets are based on the Overall number: [Low: < 100], [Medium: >= 100, < 150], [High: >= 150]. he has a friend who was just as smart and worked just as hard, who started at the same time but was placed on a team with less career The levels for a software engineer start at 59 with the title (with some small amount of variance Software Engineer, and each 2 levels is a title change. the person is around 40. Base salaries beyond 200k are exceedingly rare (even for Principal Engineers pulling the better part of $1MM/year TC). May 3, 2025 · Highest reported salary offered at Google as Principal Engineer L8 is $1370k. 18,000 recent new Google layoffs will also agree with me that this is, err. Leadership is most important, being a reliable interface between higher ups and the teams. Google principal engineer salaries range between $131,000 to $232,000 per year. P. But most of the time, the role requires engineering/technical experience in what you are selling -- so the salary is (somewhat) comparable to what an experienced engineer would be making. 97k is a very high T1 salary according to the current pay scale, and absolutely within the T2 pay scale. Each level has lower/upper/average salary bands which could easily vary by £10K to £20K as moving up to the highest levels usually requires a business case. Also, new employer doesn't have the concept of 'principal' or 'staff' engineer. Edit 1: IC = Individual contributor(non manager) If you are including stocks, please also share the fixed component For other firms, like mine, "Principal Engineer," is only a progression in job titles that lets you get billed out at a higher rate. Indirect taxes are less than 50% of the total tax collected. But GlassDoor shows the salary range maximum $260,000 with average being $155,000 based on 10k reviews for Amazon. I know exactly why. Posting the position and including salary was a requirement before a company could bring someone over to the US on a visa. Overall goal is to keep the engineers functioning smoothly and producing high quality output. 5 million, split between a base salary of approximately $400,000, a bonus, and stock-based compensation. ) Principal engineer spans teams. I'm listed as a "Principal Engineer," for some clients, but I'm just on salary. If the principal city of your metro is not in the reference list below, go to bestplaces, type in the name of the principal city (or city where you work in if there's no such thing), and then click "Cost of Living" in the left sidebar. Because people are human and software engineering does pay pretty well. 5 as data engineer, 1. e. Undergrad Comp Sci -> Engineer -> Senior Engineer -> Architect -> Director Engineering -> VP Engineering -> CTO -> Operating Principal at PE firm (CTO to CTOs) Added an MBA and a Masters in Comp Sci during my career. Principal / Distinguished or Director: £100-150k Fellow or VP: £150-175k Below Market [30-45th percentile] (lower comp companies): Junior: £25-35k Mid: £35-55k Senior: £55-75k Lead / Staff / Principal or Group / Manager: £75-95k Principal / Distinguished or Director: £75-120k Fellows or VPs: £120-150k These “most senior engineers” may depending on the team or department be a staff level engineer (in many cases), a principal engineer (for large or particularly important departments), or simply just a senior level engineer (in the case of small-ish departments). Here’s the levels. Could even be some trolls from EDMW/Salary. Now data engineer at 145k (8% above band, average is 135k for my title's band), with 10% added superannuation. That is a common mistake I see on these subs all the time. The top 10% of employees earn more than $1293k per year. Someone who does a lot of cross-team organization, architectural work, and code reviews can get promoted rapidly at higher levels. This indirect tax collected is distributed over 1billion people (including the direct tax payers). Title: Software Engineer Location: Seattle, WA Salary: $108,000 Relocation/Signing Bonus: $10,000 relocation Stock and/or recurring bonuses: $120,000 stock over 4 years. I have hired data engineer at $50/hr who were asking $120/hr, completely unjustified salary. Staff engineers and high level quant engineers. Whereas, a product manager's trajectory moves towards roles such as "VP/Director of Product", which are positions that are rarer to come by and difficult to land. 15% bonus. Even then, the salaries are comparable to senior engineers. Recently, the guidelines have been revised so that L4 is now considered a terminal level. Plus it would mean the articles are wrong because 17k + 40k = 57k, and not 65k-78k before bonuses but you already said the articles are roughly right. 175k for a data engineer (not lead) is way overpaid and a lot of Tech salary are gonna go down. The average additional pay is $455K per year, which could include cash bonus, stock, commission, profit sharing or tips. 15 mil/year Amazon Sr Principal - 917k/year Im a senior engineer at Amazon, I got promoted last summer and my comp got set to $210k salary and ~$140-160k in RSUs vesting twice a year. If you make it to a principal engineer your total income is probably $600-800k a year. There is also a high demand for experienced engineers. The annual cash Apr 5, 2024 · The average salary for Google principal engineers is $174,934 per year. 2 mil/year Salesforce principal - 1. Not the best time to move jobs, but you could definitely do better than 80k. Apr 10, 2025 · The estimated total pay range for a Principal Engineer at Google is $588K–$952K per year, which includes base salary and additional pay. They weren't working on ordinary stuff and then finally had the opportunity to do research once they hit L7 or whatever. level) position, and you're not getting there without masters That's funny you think that. Junior engineer, engineer, senior engineer, principal engineer. Location impacts how much a principal engineer at Google can expect to make. When I look at Principal/Staff engineer positions now my pay is on par with most of them. This person is likely to be the best programmer in their graduating class from a top university, terrible at management, and needs about 20 years of job ex, ie. The average total comp at TSMC for engineers is $121k and a higher level engineer would be a principal engineer so your colleague should be making around $198k, not a ridiculous $17k. However, sales roles are much easier to justify higher salaries, because without you, the company makes zero money. I have the best job. The average Principal Engineer base salary at Google is $280K per year. It seems there are other careers e. my brother has worked for google for about 7 years, started out around $150k (very high salary for a SWE back in 2015) and now makes $550k. There is no universal definition of Staff Engineer, Lead Engineer, Senior Engineer, Engineering Manager, Engineer 1, Engineer 2, Engineer 3, or even Intern. Reply reply Certain_Brick8836 Junior data engineer £25k - £35k Experienced data engineer £30k - £45k Lead / Principal data engineer £45k - £60k For inside London it can be very variable, if you’re an excellent DE also with excellent communication & networking skills you can get very good salaries. At Google/FB they're about the same: L3 is new grad SWE, L4 is 1-2 years experience, L5 is senior software engineer (probably 3+ years experience). e. The people who are principal engineers and work on researchy problems got there by already working on researchy problems and converting them into massive impact. $250K+ for an engineering position isn't unheard of, but it is also very rare, late career/high ranking (senior/chief/etc. The top 1% earn more than a whopping $1365k per year. Esp in the current AI hype market, it puts the already high non-ML tech salaries to shame (for context, L4-L5 SWE is ~350k). Principal engineers set the vision for their entire organization (100-400 engineers). Posted by u/Throwaway180030 - 127 votes and 105 comments Regarding the Google senior software engineers with 10+ years of experience with a $900K salary, are these people ones who stayed at Google for 10+ years or they have 10+ years experience from previous software engineering companies and then they switched to Google and started off at Google with the $900K salary or a combination of both or what? The median total compensation package for a L8 at Google is $1,118,148. Current title : Data Engineer Years of experience (YOE) : 0. At Google, 6 years was about the norm for L5 assuming there was space available. Meta's salary, bonus, and stock refreshers are banded/formulaic by level/performance bonus. I am recently seeing the salaries offered by startups to software development engineers ( SDE’s) with 3-4 years of experience and it is just mind blowing. Levels. g software engineers (who don't strictly require investing time and money into Master/PhD to be considered "qualified candidate") are earning similar or even higher than Analog IC / RFIC designers . 150 votes, 130 comments. The document also lays out Amazon's approach to calculating how much to offer in total compensation, which is comprised of base salary, a 2-year sign-on bonus, and restricted stock units (RSUs). . The biggest thing you're missing is roles with the same name have different levels of responsibility between the companies. My E3/E4 salary at Meta (circa 4 years ago) went: $110k -> $121k (GE) -> $160k (E4 promo) E3 salary these days based on levels fyi seems to be around $137k, with $37. the job market frenzy played to my advantage perhaps. You're assuming those are all tech positions since it's a tech company. Principal Engineers and Architects that I know of are at about the $150k to $180k range. Tack on the bonuses and benefits, it’s another $40k to $100k worth of non-salary benefits and bonuses. 130K is well paid for DE. With Amzn, google, MSFT laying off by more than 10k a lot of people are in for a surprise. Some sr staffs are hitting that comp level as well suchas at meta due to refreshers and stock growth. $50,000 over 4 years yearly refresher Total comp: $170k I think in Blind-like communities and probably more generally in CS career related topics people mean "equivalent in scope to L7 at Google (which influenced many other companies career ladders layotu". Edit 2: My path was a best case scenario and included some lucky breaks, this should not be your Don’t focus too much on base salary if you aren’t familiar with the comp model at west coast tech companies; it’s very common for the more senior developers to get half or more of their compensation in RSUs and/or bonuses. You don't see the bottom 10% posting 1-2k salaries. Also, this was in late '21. I work at a fortune 100 company, and we have over 4000 VPs, i don't even know how many thousands of directors, several thousand Software Engineers, 3 Principal Software Engineers, and one Distinguished Software Engineer. fyi collects anonymous and verified salaries from current and former employees of Google . Look at ppl upvoting your post, because they feel superior that you're earning lesser. SMH. I work across a portfolio of >70 companies that we own. To me this means that Amazon runs bait-and-switch scam as well. Total work experience ~10y in 4 countries, but only 1. A ~$1 million salary is reserved for the absolute best of the best, upper principal L7. 5 as ETL developer and 4 as data analyst Location : Toronto/Calgary (Remote first) Base salary & currency : 104k (CAD) Bonuses/Equity (optional) : 5-10% bonus Industry (optional) : Consulting As a former associate aero engineer at NGC, they won’t give you a cent more than 5k relocation. Company/Industry: Google. The VP equivalent engineering position is Distinguished Engineer. But making ~$100k (average software engineer salary in the US) and then being told a small but real number of engineers make 50-100 times that can be a rare humbling/humiliating feeling after being proud for so long for what they make. Principal engineer is supposed to be a shining example of the organization's desired behavioral and technical wishlist. Got a 5% mid year market adjustment. I spent 30 years working in industry, including research, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Oracle, etc. Principal staff is making 1mil/year. Only non-formulaic parts are stock appreciation and additional equity. oqsqjzl zdcj phrfo zgraasg cmajmh rnmab yzawjd qruz sxga lqvgl myyc gnfydh svuncj gvul lawl