Meta salaries. How much do Zuckerberg's AI engineers and researchers earn?
Software engineers at Mark Zuckerberg's Meta can earn up to $480,000 a year, and machine learning positions top out at $440,000. Even product designers and researchers at the company earn more than $200,000.
As Business Insider reports, citing data from federal documents, these figures reflect only annual salaries, excluding stock options, bonuses and other benefits that can double or triple the total compensation package.
Tech companies are typically tight-lipped about their compensation, but a U.S. government-mandated disclosure has provided a glimpse into Meta's real pay scale. The figures come from documents that companies must file with the U.S. Department of Labor when hiring foreign workers under the H-1B visa program, which allows them to bring in 85,000 specialized workers each year through a lottery system.
The data comes amid fierce competition for AI talent in Silicon Valley. Meta is reportedly offering some AI researchers compensation packages of up to $300 million over four years as it builds a new superintelligence lab.
Salaries at Meta by key roles per year (data - Q1 2025):
Artificial intelligence
▪️AI researcher — from $179,481 to $232,000
▪️AI Product Marketing Manager — $220,000
▪️Machine Learning Engineer — from $165,000 to $440,000
▪️Machine Learning Infrastructure Engineer — $239,723
▪️Machine Learning Researcher — $232,000
▪️Research engineer — from $154,840 to $400,000
▪️Senior Machine Learning Engineer — from $232,017 to $232,266
Data
▪️Data Analyst — from $168,000 to $204,000
▪️Data Analytics Manager — $223,202
▪️Data Engineer — from $125,068 to $270,000
▪️Data Engineering Manager — from $224,028 to $275,282
▪️Data Science Manager — from $248,920 to $301,619
▪️Database Engineer — from $181,000 to $240,002
▪️Director of Data Science — $320,000
▪️Data Processing Specialist — from $122,760 to $270,000
▪️Senior Data Engineer — from $189,066 to $209,720
▪️Senior Data Processing Specialist — from $204,541 to $227,559
▪️Senior Manager, Data and Analytics — $280,000
Engineering
▪️ASIC Engineer — from $165,568 to $299,880
▪️Business Engineer — from $137,000 to $228,538
▪️Design Engineer — from $185,000 to $256,270
▪️Electrical Engineer — from $164,000 to $255,000
▪️Embedded Software Engineer — from $169,313 to $262,822
▪️Engineering Director — from $352,310 to $353,042
▪️Engineering Manager — from $246,536 to $288,767
▪️Front-end engineer — from $177,747 to $233,495
▪️Hardware Engineer — from $176,000 to $240,000
▪️Network Engineer — from $115,000 to $239,237
▪️Quality Control Engineer — from $189,213 to $244,000
▪️Security Engineer — from $145,000 to $258,524
▪️Senior Software Engineer — from $194,467 to $302,134
▪️Software Engineer — from $120,000 to $480,000
▪️Software Development Manager — from $219,978 to $328,000
Product and program management
▪️Privacy Program Manager — from $181,139 to $234,461
▪️Product Designer — from $159,000 to $283,693
▪️Product Design Director — $321,538
▪️Product Design Manager — from $267,540 to $279,594
▪️Product Growth Analyst — from $142,000 to $206,000
▪️Director of Product Management — $356,512
▪️Product Manager — from $161,606 to $314,159
▪️Senior Product Designer — $199,932
▪️Senior Product Manager — $224,323
▪️Technical Program Manager — from $164,131 to $274,596
Research
▪️Applied Research Fellow — from $214,032 to $232,000
▪️Specialized Hardware Researcher — $214,311
▪️Perception Research Fellow — $249,369
▪️Research Fellow — from $167,000 to $321,101
▪️Scientific Research Manager — $258,524
▪️Senior Researcher — $214,032
▪️UX researcher — from $170,000 to $350,000
▪️UX Research Manager — $302,134
▪️UX researcher — from $195,000 to $292,160
As a reminder, Mark Zuckerberg's Meta Corporation has begun a large-scale recruitment of top AI researchers, offering compensation packages of up to $300 million over four years, with more than $100 million paid in the first year, including stock. According to media reports, at least 10 offers were received by OpenAI employees, but not all of them accepted them.
Mark Zuckerberg is personally reaching out to candidates, promising unlimited access to computing resources, including GPUs, which are critical for AI research. Some at OpenAI are hesitant, believing their influence at Meta will be less.
OpenAI has reacted sharply. Chief Scientific Officer Mark Chen compared Meta’s actions to “stealing from home,” and CEO Sam Altman called them “in bad taste” in an internal memo, stressing that “missionaries will beat mercenaries.” OpenAI is reviewing compensation to retain talent. “I have never been more confident in our research strategy than I am now. We are making an unprecedented bet on computing power, and I believe we will use it to the best of our ability,” Altman wrote.
Meta plans to acquire PlayAI, a startup specializing in voice AI