$275k for entry-level software engineers? Breaking down the 2022 Levels.fyi “End of Year Pay Report”

Levels.fyi recently released its 2022 “End of Year Pay Report.” This site collected 150,000 salary submissions (verified by uploading a PDF of the offer letter) and created a leaderboard of the highest-paying companies by engineering level and geography. New-grad software engineers can make up to $275k, senior engineers up to $550k, and principal engineers more than $1M.

While these numbers appear high, let’s take a closer look at some of these companies and how much we should read into these data points.

Cash is king. Entries for companies similar to Two Sigma that pay all-cash compensation are likely accurate.

A whopping $274,000 for a new-grad salary is impressive. If you’re interested in learning more about Two Sigma, I wrote about my interview experience and $550k offer from them in this post.

Interestingly, Two Sigma is the only hedge fund / trading firm that appears on this list, which raises the question of whether there were too few data points on other top-paying hedge funds / trading firms to be published. For example, Jane Street’s new grad software engineering offers would likely earn it a spot (possibly the top) in the leaderboard. Similarly, Hudson River Trading, Citadel, Jump Trading…