Meta salaries revealed: How much the social media giant pays engineers, AI researchers, and more

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images 2026-04-06T09:00:01.250Z Share Copy link Email Facebook WhatsApp X LinkedIn Bluesky Threads lighning bolt icon An icon in the shape of a lightning bolt.

Impact Link Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in. Business Insider analyzed work-visa salary data for over 5,000 roles at Meta in 2025. Meta paid as much as $450,000 for top software engineering roles in 2025. About half of Meta's H-1B hires are for software engineering roles. AI-generated summary Summaries are generated by an AI model trained on Business Insider's articles. AI may make mistakes or provide inaccurate/incomplete information. We're unable to load that answer right now. Please try again. What factors influence Meta's salary levels? What roles are most in demand at Meta? What is Meta's strategy for AI talent? How does Meta compare to other tech giants? How do H-1B visa changes impact hiring? In 2025, Meta went on a hiring spree, paying top dollar to acquire top AI talent.Meta paid one software engineer a base salary of $450,000 a year. A research engineer earned $400,000. And a product manager took home $348,000 — all before stock options, bonuses, and other perks. These eye-popping figures come from Business Insider's analysis of over 5,800 federal H-1B and other work visa applications Meta filed last year, offering a rare glimpse into how the social media giant compensates its workforce.The data included roles at Meta, including subsidiaries WhatsApp and its payments division. It shows that most of the new Meta hires earned between $150,000 and $250,000 in base salary, and the company continues to pay extraordinary premiums for specialized AI talent and senior technical roles. About half of all positions hired through the H-1B visa program during the period went to software engineering roles. Software engineers at Meta can command salaries of as much as $450,000. Product designers and UX researchers routinely clear the $200,000 mark. And a vice president of AI earns a base salary of $650,000. These figures reflect only annual base salaries. They exclude stock options, signing bonuses, and other perks that can often double or triple a total compensation package. For high-level researchers, Meta reportedly offered total packages of over $100 million.At the end of 2025, Meta had 78,865 employees, its 10-K said.In the last quarter of 2025, H-1B visa filings at Meta roughly halved from the same period the previous year, Business Insider reported last week. The decline came as the Trump administration made changes in September to the work visa program that made the process more costly and subjected applicants to tighter scrutiny. And while Meta has been in hiring mode, it recently laid off workers in Reality Labs and other units. Here's what Meta is paying across key roles, based on work visa filings from the 2025 fiscal year. Machine learning and AI researcher salaries Meta Superintelligence Labs chief Alexandr Wang. Bloomberg/Getty Images AI Research Scientist: $163,800 to $328,000Machine Learning Engineer: $165,000 to $250,602Machine Learning Systems Engineer: $250,000ML Engineer: $193,000 to $287,042Product Manager, Machine Learning: $252,000Product Policy Manager, GenAI: $198,000Software Engineer, Machine Learning: $144,096 to $293,118Software Engineer - Machine Learning Generalist: $221,024Software Engineering Manager, Machine Learning: $258,524Software Systems ML Engineer: $270,732 Researcher salaries Applied Research Scientist: $181,786 to $265,129Research Engineer: $124,000 to $400,000Research Engineer Manager: $289,144Research Engineering Manager: $276,678Research Scientist: $135,516 to $302,134Research Scientist Central Applied Science: $263,803Research Scientist Manager: $258,524 to $263,803Thermal Research Engineer: $254,000User Experience Researcher: $170,000 to $242,050UX Researcher: $163,000 to $292,160UX Research Science Manager: $302,134 Engineer salaries Andrew Bosworth, Meta's CTO. Bloomberg/Getty Images ASIC & FPGA Engineer: $299,880ASIC Manager, Design Verification: $258,940.00 to $299,880Director, Production Engineering: $354,123Embedded Software Engineer: $169,313 to $269,081Front End Engineer: $178,000 to $282,461Production Engineer: $108,098 to $317,242Production Engineering Manager: $258,524 to $309,797Senior Staff Software Engineer: $311,029Software Engineer: $124,000 to $450,000Software Engineer (Leadership) - Infrastructure: $317,797Software Engineering Manager: $200,907 to $328,000Software Engineer Manager: $277,837 to $318,000Sr Staff Hardware Engineer: $294,520Staff Software Engineer: $258,524 to $263,803 Data scientist and engineer salaries Database Engineering Manager: $287,470Data Engineer: $125,068 to $270,000Data Engineering Director: $336,606Data Engineer Manager: $231,714 to $289,786Data Engineering Manager: $224,028 to $305,406Data Engineering Manager, Analytics: $234,781 to $289,786Data Science Manager: $230,498 to $305,000Data Science Manager, Analytics: $260,000Data Scientist: $122,760 to $295,703Data Scientist, Analytics: $171,000 to $267,703Data Scientist Manager: $248,920 to $264,461Data Scientist, Product Analytics: $162,000 to $260,516.00Tech Lead, Data Science: $259,085 Product salaries Naomi Gleit, head of product at Meta. Horacio Villalobos#Corbis/Getty Images Business API Product Marketing Manager: $269,719IDC Program Manager: $211,934 to $285,564Product Design Director: $328,103 to $344,171Product Designer: $132,991 to $279,594Product Design Manager: $234,706 to $279,594Product Manager: $165,485 to $348,101Product Marketing Manager: $195,000 to $248,000Program Manager, Performance: $258,950Technical Program Management Manager: $266,429Technical Program Manager: $164,131 to $289,397Trust Compliance and Operations, Program Manager: $258,774 Director and leadership salaries Director: $359,940Director, Product Management: $333,200 to $348,902Director, Product Strategy: $347,214Director, Regulatory Escalations: $295,862Director of Security, Integrity, & Investigations Data: $294,000HR Director, GBG & International HR: $352,416Product Management Director: $346,240Technical Lead Manager: $308,566UX Research Science Manager: $302,134VP of Engineering, AI: $650,000VP, FoA, Marketing: $476,600.00