- Business Insider analyzed salary data that Microsoft discloses when it applies for visas on behalf of foreign workers to find the highest-paid roles within the company.
- It's not a comprehensive look because it contains only salaries for foreign workers, but it gives rare insight into the otherwise private pay practices at the $1.6 trillion tech titan.
- We analyzed the federal data for Microsoft titles with the highest salaries and provided a salary range for each role. Notably, the data doesn't include total compensation, which can include bonuses or stock awards.
- We focused on roles that pay $175,000 or more at the high end of the range and categorized them based on information we found in job postings.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Federal data provides a window into the highest-paid roles within Microsoft.
American companies have to disclose salaries when they apply for visas on behalf of current or prospective foreign workers. The Office of Foreign Labor Certification publishes the salaries every year. Business Insider analyzed the data to find the highest-paying roles within Microsoft, the $1.6 trillion tech titan.
Granted, it's not a comprehensive look because it contains only salaries for foreign workers. Still, it's the best look at salary data we have because Microsoft — like almost every other company on the planet — generally doesn't disclose or discuss employee compensation, with the notable exception of its regulatory requirement to disclose the pay packages for top executives like CEO Satya Nadella. Microsoft declined to comment for this report.
We analyzed Microsoft's more than 1,400 active foreign-worker visas in 2020 to find the titles with the highest salaries and provided a salary range for each role (the data doesn't include total compensation, which can include bonuses or stock awards).
We focused this list on roles that pay $175,000 or more at the high end of the range and categorized them based on information we found in job postings. The highest we found pays $250,000.Let us know if you think any titles are in the wrong place.
More than three-quarters of Microsoft's active visas are in Washington state, where Microsoft is headquartered. The company has offices small and large all over America, including sizable outposts in California, North Carolina, and Texas. Note that offices in different cities may pay local employees at different rates, based on factors including the cost of living.
Internal Microsoft poll results obtained by Business Insider in May suggest a declining number of employees think their pay is competitive. Sources said that 55% of employees surveyed said their combined salary, bonuses, and equity was competitive with similar jobs at other companies — down from 57% in 2019, 61% in 2018, and 65% in 2017.
Microsoft paid a senior service engineering manager a $185,592 salary.
Many high-paying roles within Microsoft appear to relate to the company's Azure cloud computing business, including infrastructure service engineers and cloud solutions architects. It's likely the company has service engineers and architects across the business, however, not just in its Azure business line.
- Senior service engineering manager: $185,592
- Site reliability engineer: $128,560 to $182,506
- Senior service engineer: $151,591 to $178,656
- Cloud solutions architect: $139,236 to $175,800
One Microsoft legal counsel fetches a $191,939 salary.
There were few instances of legal and finance roles among the list of highest-paid job titles:
- Legal counsel: $191,939
- Financial analysis and controls manager: $186,352
Microsoft pays one principal design manager $194,846.
Microsoft employs design professionals across the business, from its Microsoft 365 suite of business applications to its cloud and artificial-intelligence businesses:
- Principal design manager: $183,251 to $194,846
- Senior designer: $150,800 to $176,244
A Silicon engineer at Microsoft makes $204,423 in salary alone.
Hardware engineering roles made the list of Microsoft's highest-paid job titles. While these roles are likely spread across the company, some land within Microsoft's "experiences and devices" team, which Microsoft recently reorganized to bolster the group with internal cloud talent.
- Silicon engineer: $94,000 to $204,423
- Senior sourcing engineer: $175,000
Microsoft pays one Principal PM manager a $220,632 salary.
A project manager's role within Microsoft depends a lot on the team, but former Microsoft Program Manager Amanda Song once said, "They develop and advocate for the product vision, build the road map, interact with customers to collect feedback, and work cross-functionally with engineering, design, marketing, customer support, etc., over the product or feature life cycle, from ideation through launch and beyond."
- Principal PM manager: $183,801 to $220,632
- Principal program manager: $176,000 to $215,000
- Program manager: $94,000 to $210,000
- Senior program manager: $145,000 to $200,000
- Senior PM manager: $167,757 to $179,523
One Microsoft researcher earns a $240,000 salary.
Microsoft Research is the company's long-established think tank, responsible for technologies powering everything from quantum computing to underwater data centers to the HoloLens goggles.
While not all Microsoft researchers and scientists necessarily work for the company's research arm, it's clear they are highly paid across the company.
- Researcher: $169,700 to $240,000
- Data and applied scientist: $110,000 to $204,300
- Data and applied scientist manager: $170,875 to $188,700
One software engineer at Microsoft brings in a $246,000 salary.
Software engineer roles feature most prominently on the list of Microsoft's highest-paid job titles:
- Software engineer: $94,000 to $246,000
- Principal software engineer: $186,000 to $235,000
- Software engineering lead: $170,750 to $234,824
- Software engineering manager: $131,000 to $222,896
- Principal software engineering manager: $174,000 to $220,000
- Senior software development engineer: $135,000 to $203,488
- Senior software engineer:$111,500 to $200,000
- Principal software architect: $200,000
- Principal development lead: $188,504
- Principal security program manager: $180,000
Microsoft pays one sales manager a $250,000 salary.
Microsoft hires for sales and marketing roles across the business, and a few command some of the highest salaries within the company:
- Channel sales manager: $250,000
- CSA manager: $202,471
- OLCM Manager: $191,065.00
- Account technology strategist: $132,000 to $192,700
- Support engineer: $93,400 to $190,000
- BPM Manager: $146,951 to $179,500
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