- 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.
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
AI Research Scientist: $163,800 to $328,000
Machine Learning Engineer: $165,000 to $250,602
Machine Learning Systems Engineer: $250,000
ML Engineer: $193,000 to $287,042
Product Manager, Machine Learning: $252,000
Product Policy Manager, GenAI: $198,000
Software Engineer, Machine Learning: $144,096 to $293,118
Software Engineer - Machine Learning Generalist: $221,024
Software Engineering Manager, Machine Learning: $258,524
Software Systems ML Engineer: $270,732
Researcher salaries
Applied Research Scientist: $181,786 to $265,129
Research Engineer: $124,000 to $400,000
Research Engineer Manager: $289,144
Research Engineering Manager: $276,678
Research Scientist: $135,516 to $302,134
Research Scientist Central Applied Science: $263,803
Research Scientist Manager: $258,524 to $263,803
Thermal Research Engineer: $254,000
User Experience Researcher: $170,000 to $242,050
UX Researcher: $163,000 to $292,160
UX Research Science Manager: $302,134
Engineer salaries
ASIC & FPGA Engineer: $299,880
ASIC Manager, Design Verification: $258,940.00 to $299,880
Director, Production Engineering: $354,123
Embedded Software Engineer: $169,313 to $269,081
Front End Engineer: $178,000 to $282,461
Production Engineer: $108,098 to $317,242
Production Engineering Manager: $258,524 to $309,797
Senior Staff Software Engineer: $311,029
Software Engineer: $124,000 to $450,000
Software Engineer (Leadership) - Infrastructure: $317,797
Software Engineering Manager: $200,907 to $328,000
Software Engineer Manager: $277,837 to $318,000
Sr Staff Hardware Engineer: $294,520
Staff Software Engineer: $258,524 to $263,803
Data scientist and engineer salaries
Database Engineering Manager: $287,470
Data Engineer: $125,068 to $270,000
Data Engineering Director: $336,606
Data Engineer Manager: $231,714 to $289,786
Data Engineering Manager: $224,028 to $305,406
Data Engineering Manager, Analytics: $234,781 to $289,786
Data Science Manager: $230,498 to $305,000
Data Science Manager, Analytics: $260,000
Data Scientist: $122,760 to $295,703
Data Scientist, Analytics: $171,000 to $267,703
Data Scientist Manager: $248,920 to $264,461
Data Scientist, Product Analytics: $162,000 to $260,516.00
Tech Lead, Data Science: $259,085
Product salaries
Business API Product Marketing Manager: $269,719
IDC Program Manager: $211,934 to $285,564
Product Design Director: $328,103 to $344,171
Product Designer: $132,991 to $279,594
Product Design Manager: $234,706 to $279,594
Product Manager: $165,485 to $348,101
Product Marketing Manager: $195,000 to $248,000
Program Manager, Performance: $258,950
Technical Program Management Manager: $266,429
Technical Program Manager: $164,131 to $289,397
Trust Compliance and Operations, Program Manager: $258,774
Director and leadership salaries
Director: $359,940
Director, Product Management: $333,200 to $348,902
Director, Product Strategy: $347,214
Director, Regulatory Escalations: $295,862
Director of Security, Integrity, & Investigations Data: $294,000
HR Director, GBG & International HR: $352,416
Product Management Director: $346,240
Technical Lead Manager: $308,566
UX Research Science Manager: $302,134
VP of Engineering, AI: $650,000
VP, FoA, Marketing: $476,600.00
