{"id":13,"date":"2026-01-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/springgreen-curlew-885344.hostingersite.com\/blog\/faang-salary-comparison-2026\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T05:46:38","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T05:46:38","slug":"faang-salary-comparison-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastroundai.com\/blog\/faang-salary-comparison-2026","title":{"rendered":"What FAANG Actually Pays in 2026: A Real Look at Google, Meta, Amazon, Apple, and Netflix"},"content":{"rendered":"

At E5, Meta paid a median of $501,000 last year. Google L5, the same level, paid $409,000. That’s a $92,000 gap for the same job title, before you account for vesting schedules or refresh cycles. The “FAANG pays well” line collapses pretty quickly once you compare same-level offers side by side.<\/p>\n

All numbers below come from the Levels.fyi 2025 End-of-Year Pay Report<\/a> and the per-company salary pages on Levels.fyi<\/a>. Total comp here means base + annualised stock + target bonus, the way Levels.fyi<\/a> reports it. If you compare against an offer letter using “base + RSU at grant”, you’ll undercount.<\/p>\n

Median total comp by company, 2026<\/h2>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Company<\/th>\nMedian TC (all levels)<\/th>\nEntry<\/th>\nSenior<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Meta<\/td>\n$455,000<\/td>\n$182,000 (E3)<\/td>\n$501,000 (E5)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Netflix<\/td>\n$450,000<\/td>\n$350,000<\/td>\n$500,000+ (Senior)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Google<\/td>\n$308,000<\/td>\n$181,000 (L3)<\/td>\n$409,000 (L5)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Apple<\/td>\n$280,000<\/td>\n$175,000 (ICT2)<\/td>\n$380,000 (ICT4)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Amazon<\/td>\n$270,000<\/td>\n$180,000 (L4)<\/td>\n$408,000 (L6)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Meta sits at the top of the median table for one specific reason. After the META rebrand and the 2024 stock recovery, RSU grants annualise much higher than they did during the 2022 dip, and refreshers are coming in at levels Meta hadn’t paid since pre-pandemic. Whether the stock holds is an open question. (At E6 the picture is even more lopsided. Meta’s median is $788k, Google’s is $537k.)<\/p>\n

Level equivalents matter more than the company name<\/h2>\n

Most candidates compare offers wrong. They look at the all-levels median and pick the highest. The right comparison is same-level to same-level, because a “Google L4” is a “Meta E4” is an “Amazon L5”, and conflating titles loses you tens of thousands of dollars a year. Here’s the rough map.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Google<\/th>\nMeta<\/th>\nAmazon<\/th>\nApple<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
L3 (entry)<\/td>\nE3<\/td>\nL4 (SDE I)<\/td>\nICT2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
L4<\/td>\nE4<\/td>\nL5 (SDE II)<\/td>\nICT3<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
L5 (senior)<\/td>\nE5<\/td>\nL6 (senior)<\/td>\nICT4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
L6 (staff)<\/td>\nE6<\/td>\nL7 (principal)<\/td>\nICT5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
L7 (senior staff)<\/td>\nE7<\/td>\nL8 (sr. principal)<\/td>\nICT6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Two things to flag. First, Amazon’s level numbers don’t map one-to-one onto seniority the way Google’s do (Amazon’s L4 is entry, Google’s L4 is mid). Second, Netflix doesn’t level publicly. They hire “senior” and above, with title compression that doesn’t translate cleanly to any other company.<\/p>\n

The vesting schedule is half the story<\/h2>\n

Two engineers with the same headline TC can take home very different cash over four years depending on how the stock vests. The schedules vary more than people realise.<\/p>\n

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