See a sneak peek of what Microsoft employees make each year

Microsoft logo
Microsoft logo (Image credit: Daniel Rubino / Windows Central)

What you need to know

  • Salary data from visas gives ranges of pay rates for various roles at Microsoft.
  • The information is only made up of workers from outside of the United States.
  • The data covers more than 4,000 active employees.

Microsoft is a large company with employees spanning across the globe. Recently, Business Insider analyzed salary data which Microsoft disclosed when applying for visas for foreign workers. The data provides insight into the salaries of some positions at Microsoft, though it's important to note that this is far from a comprehensive list and only includes foreign workers in the U. S.. Business Insider specifically looked at roles with higher salaries at Microsoft with the high end of a role's salary range being above $175,000.

Business Insider's report takes a look at more than 4,000 active foreign employees. The salaries from the data provide a range, rather than a specific amount received by an employee. Here are a few notable roles from different categories:

  • Product marketing manager: $89,500 to $182,175
  • Software engineer: $85,842 to $235,787
  • Principal software engineer: $155,000 to $212,000
  • Principal design verification engineer: $219,057
  • Designer: $108,000 to $195,020

For the complete list, you can check out Business Insider's breakdown. Business Insider also points out that almost one-fifth of the highest paid job titles found in the data are related to software engineering and around 10 percent of the roles are design verification and validation roles. These ratios might not line up with Microsoft's staff across the board, however, as they are only based on a subset of workers.

Sean Endicott
News Writer and apps editor

Sean Endicott brings nearly a decade of experience covering Microsoft and Windows news to Windows Central. He joined our team in 2017 as an app reviewer and now heads up our day-to-day news coverage. If you have a news tip or an app to review, hit him up at sean.endicott@futurenet.com (opens in new tab).

10 Comments
  • These are foreign workers in the US only.
  • These are expatriates.
    Does it mean the non-expats earn less?
  • These are not expats. These are workers from other countries that have moved to the US for Microsoft. Microsoft would need to sponsor them on something like an H1-B visa, and they would need to provide this salary range with the paperwork.
  • Why would non expat earn less? Even in socialists countries it's usually not the case or at least it's not a variable i' the equation... In those companies nobody cares where you are from... It's your skills and your curriculum that dictates what you earn... Stop trying to intervene in the free market it's the cancer of the economy.... Just look at thousands of year of economical government regulations, they always ALWAYS fail....
  • That's disgusting, as how could they earn that much but release crappy products
  • <grabs popcorn and a seat>
  • My thoughts exactly...I'd love to get paid that to write crap with useless features and still have a job at the end of the day.
  • Ah, no I cannot look at the Business Insider's article, because I don't have a Business Insider's account. It blocks me the instant I go to the link you provide and insists that I purchase a Business Insider plan. Otherwise, forget it, it ain't gonna let me look at anything.
  • These numbers prove that Linux and LibreOffice aren’t having desired impact.
  • There is no way SDEs in Redmond are making less than $100k