The AI talent wars are intensifying as companies like Meta offer salaries in the mid-six figures.
Federal filings reveal Meta's wage ranges for researchers, engineers, and other workers.
The highest-paid research engineer at Meta makes up to $440,000 in base salary.
Meta may be spending hundreds of millions of dollars to lure top AI talent from rivals. But how much is it paying its broader workforce of software engineers, product managers, and UX researchers?
Thanks to data from federal filings, we now have a window into the company's salary ranges during a heated moment in Silicon Valley's talent wars.
Software engineers at Meta can make up to $480,000. Machine learning roles go as high as $440,000. Even product designers and researchers routinely top $200,000.
The numbers come from filings that companies must submit to the Department of Labor when hiring foreign workers through the H-1B visa program, which allows them to bring in 85,000 specialized workers annually through a lottery system. Because tech companies typically guard their compensation details closely, these government-mandated disclosures provide a peek into actual pay scales.
The numbers reflect only annual salaries, excluding the stock options, signing bonuses, and other perks that can often double or triple total compensation packages.
The data comes amid intense competition for AI talent in Silicon Valley. Meta is reportedly offering some AI researchers compensation packages worth up to $300 million over four years as it builds out a new Superintelligence lab.
A spokesperson for Meta declined to comment.
The frenzy extends beyond tech giants. Thinking Machines Lab, the secretive AI startup founded by former OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati, is paying technical staff base salaries of up to $500,000 before the company has launched a single product, Business Insider reported earlier this week.
The battle has gotten personal. After Meta lured away seven OpenAI researchers, including Trapit Bansal, co-creator of the company's o1 reasoning model, OpenAI's chief research officer, Mark Chen, said in an internal memo that it felt like "someone has broken into our home."
Here's what Meta is paying across key roles, based on H-1B filings from the first quarter of 2025.
Artificial intelligence: The highest-paid research engineer at Meta makes up to $440,000.
Mark Zuckerberg shows off holographic glasses at Meta Connect 2024.
