Hundreds of Microsoft employees recently shared their compensation in an internal spreadsheet reviewed by Business Insider. An analysis of this data shows how much workers at the tech giant’s new AI organization are paid compared to their peers.
The AI group launched in March with Mustafa Suleiman, co-founder of DeepMind, at the helm. He is responsible for consumer AI products such as Microsoft’s Copilot AI chatbot and Bing search engine.
BI analyzed more than 500 submissions from people who identified themselves as Microsoft employees in the US. The spreadsheet includes salaries, performance-based raises, promotions, and bonus percentages.
The bottom line: Microsoft is paying a lot more for AI talent. It’s part of the race to build what could become the next big computing platform. Experts in deep learning and other areas of AI are in short supply, so companies are competing fiercely, mostly by offering juicy salaries and hefty stock awards. Expensive benefits value some engineers at as much as $4 million per person.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Microsoft
Here are some highlights from Microsoft’s exclusive data:
- The average salary for all roles in the Microsoft AI group is about 37% more than the company-wide average in the US, according to information shared in the spreadsheet.
- Compensation among those who self-identified as Microsoft AI software engineers was about 48% more than all software engineering roles at the company in the US.
- Median compensation among data professionals is about 11% more than the overall US average.
The chart below shows averages for various Microsoft units based on the internal spreadsheet obtained from BI. It also shows average compensation for all roles and specifically for software engineers and data scientists. (The Microsoft AI group had fewer role types compared to other organizations.)
Microsoft employees typically share this information anonymously through spreadsheets to promote pay transparency, but they are not official Microsoft corporate documents. The spreadsheet reviewed by BI only includes information that employees have voluntarily decided to share and is not exhaustive.
A Microsoft spokesman declined to comment.
Are you a Microsoft employee or someone else who can share insights?
Contact the reporter, Ashley Stewart, via the encrypted messaging app Signal (+1-425-344-8242) or email (astewart@businessinsider.com).