Is it me or is the title misleading? I thought there was some sort of internal spreadsheet (ie. made by the accounting department or HR) with everyone's salary that got stolen/leaked, but really this is just survey data.
Does Microsoft really have eighty employee levels?
If these numbers are accurate they put things into perspective though.
I see people on here and other forums who will swear blind that even basic engineers at big US tech companies are earning $750k after just a couple of years.
No,
It goes from 59 to 70.
80 level also exists but it's just for the CEO, I believe there is nothing between 70 and 80 (maybe there is 73 or something like that, but at any rate it's not continuous).
It's a weird system
You can find most of this online. For software engineers(managers) and Product/Program Managers you start at 59 and go up to 67. At 68 you are a partner and there are very few IC from this level on. At level 70 you are EVP level. At 70+ you are CVP. Support starts at 56 and can go up to at least 61-62. I don't know about the other disciplines.
I don't know about Microsoft, but at IBM for example engineers with a 4-year eng/CS degree start at band 6, but the bands below 6 do exist, just not for that role. I'm guessing it's similar at MS.
They don't have 80 levels, their naming scheme for engineering just starts at 59 and goes up from there. Certainly more levels than most other companies though. You can view the leveling breakdown at https://levels.fyi
>Does Microsoft really have eighty employee levels?
Possibly. All the article says is
"the levels start at 59 and go beyond 80. Microsoft’s senior positions start at level 63, according to the crowdsourced tech compensation website Levels.fyi."
There is sampling bias, so it is unclear if these salaries are representative. Reading the article it would not be unreasonable to conclude that those that participated in the survey are more likely to be those that are under paid.
> A majority — 194 out of 310 — total respondents said they were people of color. Also, 69 respondents reported feeling marginalized or at risk of being marginalized due to their gender or gender identity. In total, 22% of respondents said that their gender or gender identity had or might hinder them at work.
This indicates that it is not a representative sample of M$. Though which conclusions to make from it are much harder to say.
Microsoft is known for paying lower than FAANG, and most employees are in a significantly lower cost-of-living area (specifically, much lower cost of home ownership) than Facebook/Google/Apple/Netflix/etc. employees.
Also, I wonder if employees who feel they’re being paid well would have anything to gain by filling this out. So there may be sampling bias.
The fact that this includes stock makes it that much more surprising. Microsoft’s stock has grown like 5x in the last four years, (2x over the last two).
An offer that was worth $150k when you were hired is probably making you lots more now if there were lots of stock. But apparently the stock awards are like $3k-$10k?
WA has no personal income tax. Also a bit of a libertarian flair overall, why MSFT is openly defense friendly, which means local government has allowed for building housing everywhere.
It's expected. MS has been a large company for a while, which means two things: revenue per employee is not necessarily high, and visibility of individuals can be murky. As a result, packages are heavily skewed towards most senior people. I bet the partner engineers, for instance, make quite decent income.
the amount of internal denial about the pay gap between us and FANG companies is pretty silly. a lot of high performers get the principal-band bump tangled in front of them for years as an incentive. (level 66+. level 65 is the first "principal" level but doesn't get the non-linear comp boost yet).
I might be wrong, but reading online, Microsoft seems to be talked about as if pay is a lot lower than similar big tech companies and held in a low regard than say, Google or FB.
Its fascinating how much lower Microsoft compensation appears to be compared to others, even Amazon. I guess the stock has been doing well, but can Microsoft truly attract the best talent with these numbers?
Good. Salaries should be public record as an accountability measure. You can't fix the problem of your employer unfairly paying you less than your colleagues if you don't know what your colleagues make.
> You can't fix the problem of your employer unfairly paying you less
Are people good judges of how much value they bring a company? You may think you deserve more pay, but you may also have a high opinion of yourself or over-estimate your skill/contributions/merit.
I think making salaries public information is a double-edged sword. On the one hand it reduces information asymmetry and gives you more negotiating power, but on the other it could probably lead to sour grapes and/or hurt feelings among employees where there was none before.
It seems a bit extreme (and, frankly, dangerous) to give every idiot on Twitter access to salary information on every W-2 employee at every public company. Especially in our current culture of online discourse and with our current norms (or lack thereof) about the line between professional and personal lives and views.
All salaries should be public record? I get your point and why this argument is made but personally, no thanks. I don't want my personal financial information or income information to be shared with just anyone. No thanks.
What I get paid is nobody's business except mine and my company's. That you can't negotiate your salary worth isn't my problem. Get better negotiating skills.
This will only hurt employee salaries. If all salaries were public, there would be no negotiating and they it would make them based on position rather than individual (IE: the lowest it can possibly be).
Companies will just show you the public chart if you try to negotiate.
Want to fix the problem? Learn how to negotiate your value to a company. This skill comes in handy in pretty much all aspects of life.
The best part of the article is in the first paragraph, "...Microsoft employees shared their salaries, bonuses, and stock awards in a Google spreadsheet..."
I see a lot of people saying a lot of things about how salary transparency is bad for relatively high performers. I haven't found that to be the case. It's useful because it let's you understand the rules that the other side has in negotiation. For example, where I work, if I wanted to negotiate, I wouldn't have any luck increasing my base salary (without getting releveled), but I could negotiate on stock or bonus.
Also like, personally I don't think a skill like negotiation should be a part of the "meritocracy" of Computer Science.
has just over 2000 entries for Software Engineers. Admittedly, it’s time since launching in 2017, but that’s still a simple average of more than 600 samples a year.
More information is always good. In any case, this information is out there since it's common in Asian and South Asian communities to be pretty open about pay - though usually not with people outside the community to respect the local culture.
Usually, the value of the information is high when everyone knows everyone is equivalent.
The aim is to create the effects of Dodd-Frank on CEO pay.
How do people measure a year's stock comp? Cash value of vesting RSUs and (value-strikeprice) of options that vest in that year? Or just present value of grants issued in that year?
Whether that's the right way to do it is a matter of perspective but at least it's a number that doesn't constantly change. And with tech stock prices doing what they do, it's been very conservative over the past 4 years...
This is a good question. With a public company it's easy to treat vested stock comp as cash. I would not expect newly issued grants to be included if they depend on continued employment.
> Over the course of August 2020, more than 300 Microsoft employees shared their salaries, bonuses, and stock awards in a Google spreadsheet to continue their push for fairer compensation.
I find this interesting that they are using Google Sheets instead of Excel.
The one big area where Google Docs is superior to Microsoft, is having a bunch of people be able to edit a single document.
What's interesting is that you have information about whether the respondent identifies as a person of color and questions about gender identity and whether they feel marginalized. And yet you decide to just report information that's already available on levels.fyi. Why not dig into questions like whether people who identify as people of color or are feeling marginalized are getting paid less or the same as their peers?
[+] [-] gruez|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrisseaton|5 years ago|reply
If these numbers are accurate they put things into perspective though.
I see people on here and other forums who will swear blind that even basic engineers at big US tech companies are earning $750k after just a couple of years.
[+] [-] sailingparrot|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kyran_adept|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] banana_giraffe|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dysfunction|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jtdev|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zuhayeer|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] iudqnolq|5 years ago|reply
Possibly. All the article says is
"the levels start at 59 and go beyond 80. Microsoft’s senior positions start at level 63, according to the crowdsourced tech compensation website Levels.fyi."
[+] [-] hiddencost|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] godelski|5 years ago|reply
> A majority — 194 out of 310 — total respondents said they were people of color. Also, 69 respondents reported feeling marginalized or at risk of being marginalized due to their gender or gender identity. In total, 22% of respondents said that their gender or gender identity had or might hinder them at work.
This indicates that it is not a representative sample of M$. Though which conclusions to make from it are much harder to say.
[+] [-] freyr|5 years ago|reply
Also, I wonder if employees who feel they’re being paid well would have anything to gain by filling this out. So there may be sampling bias.
[+] [-] WillPostForFood|5 years ago|reply
That salary, with stability, good benefits, and stock options, seems pretty good for entry level.
[+] [-] CydeWeys|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ianhorn|5 years ago|reply
[edit: stock, not stock options]
[+] [-] jetbooster|5 years ago|reply
> A lot lower than I was expecting
... I need to emmigrate
[+] [-] adrr|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wolco|5 years ago|reply
Mostly all junior and that makes sense in terms of who is sharing. 60% said they were visible minority and 22% said their gender was an issue.
Does that lineup with recent Microsoft hires or is this dataset unrepresentative.
[+] [-] carabiner|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hintymad|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bogdanu|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shepwalker|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kerng|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] non-entity|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] safog|5 years ago|reply
https://www.levels.fyi/# exists but might be inflated a bit.
[+] [-] kerng|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chadlavi|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] umvi|5 years ago|reply
Are people good judges of how much value they bring a company? You may think you deserve more pay, but you may also have a high opinion of yourself or over-estimate your skill/contributions/merit.
I think making salaries public information is a double-edged sword. On the one hand it reduces information asymmetry and gives you more negotiating power, but on the other it could probably lead to sour grapes and/or hurt feelings among employees where there was none before.
[+] [-] _dwt|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] speby|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sys_64738|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sacks2k|5 years ago|reply
Companies will just show you the public chart if you try to negotiate.
Want to fix the problem? Learn how to negotiate your value to a company. This skill comes in handy in pretty much all aspects of life.
[+] [-] satisfaction|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joshuamorton|5 years ago|reply
Also like, personally I don't think a skill like negotiation should be a part of the "meritocracy" of Computer Science.
[+] [-] didibus|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] boulos|5 years ago|reply
https://www.levels.fyi/comp.html?track=Software%20Engineer&s...
has just over 2000 entries for Software Engineers. Admittedly, it’s time since launching in 2017, but that’s still a simple average of more than 600 samples a year.
Is levels.fyi just not widely known?
[+] [-] renewiltord|5 years ago|reply
Usually, the value of the information is high when everyone knows everyone is equivalent.
The aim is to create the effects of Dodd-Frank on CEO pay.
[+] [-] rconti|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pb7|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TomVDB|5 years ago|reply
Whether that's the right way to do it is a matter of perspective but at least it's a number that doesn't constantly change. And with tech stock prices doing what they do, it's been very conservative over the past 4 years...
[+] [-] hughes|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mdoms|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slezyr|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RcouF1uZ4gsC|5 years ago|reply
I find this interesting that they are using Google Sheets instead of Excel.
The one big area where Google Docs is superior to Microsoft, is having a bunch of people be able to edit a single document.
[+] [-] rvrabec|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wdr1|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darth_avocado|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] microcolonel|5 years ago|reply
Well, it is an engineering company based in Washington. This just in: Mitsubishi HQ mostly Japanese and male(!!!).