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Facebook Software Engineer

How much does a Facebook Software Engineer make? Well, there are lots of, shall we say “speculative” answers to this question online. The goal of this page is to cut through the noise and provide the real data based on our experience with 100s of tech negotiations and 1000s of submitted offers. Below, we’ve listed the top of band compensation for multiple Facebook (or Meta) SWE levels. There is also a bonus section at the bottom with info on negotiating Facebook Software Engineer offers.

Negotiate Your Offer

Facebook Software Engineer Offer Components

  • Facebook base salary:

    Facebook’s base salary is exactly what you would expect. There are no tricks here
  • Facebook equity (RSUs):

    Meta vests equity (i.e. you receive shares) evenly over 4 years - 25/25/25/25. These shares are distributed every 3 months. The actual amount of shares you receive is calculated by dividing the dollar value by a "share value". The share value is usually the trailing average closing stock price of the 30 days before your start date
  • Facebook signing bonus:

    Meta only gives signing bonuses in year 1 (unlike some other companies - Amazon, Uber, etc.). Your Meta signing bonus is paid within 30 days of your start date, which is a nice feature as some companies pro-rate your sign on bonus over the first 12 months
  • Facebook performance bonus:

    Meta has historically had very stable performance bonuses. The company multiplier is usually slightly about 1x and the individual multiplier is tied to your performance rating (1x, 1.25x, 2x, 3x). Each level has different bonus target which you will see listed below. These are not negotiable
  • Facebook stock refreshers:

    Meta recruiters have recently become much more transparent about stock refresher numbers. The typical assumption is that you will receive 25% of your initial grant as a new refresher grant each year, which will also vest over 4-years. These stack and have a powerful compounding effect. However, they are also performance based so refreshers are not guaranteed


Note: levelling is critical to understanding compensation bands. If you aren't familiar with FB levels, skip to the bottom to read this.

E4 Facebook Software Engineer Salary

2022 Top of Band Numbers

Base Salary

$177K

Equity (4 years)

$400K

Signing Bonus

$75K

Performance Bonus

10%

Meta's performance bonus targets for IC4 SWE increased from 10% to 15% towards the tail end of 2021.

E5 Facebook Software Engineer Salary

2022 Top of Band Numbers.

Base Salary

$214K

Equity (4 years)

$700K

Signing Bonus

$100K

Performance Bonus

15%

Similar to E4, top of band adjustment started happening towards the end of 2021.

E6 Facebook Software Engineer Salary

2022 Top of Band Numbers

Base Salary

$250K

Equity (4 years)

$1.3M

Signing Bonus

$100K

Performance Bonus

20%

Meta hates to go above band at E4 and E5, but at E6 we did help negotiate some offers up to $1.5M equity with special approval.

E7 Facebook Software Engineer Salary

2022 Top of Band Numbers

Base Salary

$295K

Equity (4 years)

$2.5M

Signing Bonus

$100K

Performance Bonus

25%

Meta's engineering manager pay is in line with IC pay. The numbers above are E7/M2. Facebook almost never went above band at this level because they paid better than almost everyone.

Facebook Software Engineer Negotiation

So now you've got the comp data, are you ready to negotiate? Not quite.

First off, comp data is constantly changing. 2022 numbers are coming in higher than the 2021 numbers listed above, and it’s critical to know the full range for each component to optimize your negotiation. But even more than that, many people think knowing the compensation data is the most important part of a negotiation, but it’s not. You can go tell your Meta recruiter that you read online that top of band is $X and that you want that number, but in 90% of cases that won’t work. So what will?

Companies negotiate when they believe you won’t accept their offer. But, since you just finished a long and arduous interview process with them, they know you are likely to accept the job unless you have higher competing offers from other great companies.

This means you need to create leverage and make it believable that you are considering other options but would prefer Facebook if the compensation is comparable. This sounds easy but quickly becomes challenging if you don’t have other offers or if your other offers aren’t higher than the top of band comp numbers you are targeting.

Even if you are in a perfect situation where you have a competing offer with comp just slightly higher than the top of band numbers you are targeting, the negotiation can still get complicated. For example, let’s say your competing offer is from Stripe. Seems like everything is good (Stripe is a well respected large company), but if you bring that to Facebook, their comp team will discount the equity by 25% since Stripe is a private company. All of a sudden they aren’t willing to give you a top of band number because your leverage has been weakened. There are dozens of rules like this that can completely de-rail a negotiation. Think of the system like a black box where a series of inputs can be reliably turned into a specific output, but you need to know how to perfectly setup the inputs

Facebook Software Engineer Levels

Facebook Levels

E3

E4

E5

E6 / M1

E7 / M2

E8

=

Google Levels

L3

L4

L5

L6

L7

L8

Google is a useful comparison because it has set the "industry standard" levelling system. Facebook's is nearly identical but using different names "IC" for most roles and "E" for software engineering and a few other positions. However, many people with FB offers will also be considering other big tech companies like Amazon. Amazon's level comparison chart looks quite a bit different. Quick rule of thumb is that you should subtract 1 from the Amazon level (e.g. FB IC4 = Amazon L5).

1:1 Salary Negotiation Support

We've negotiated more than $40M in Facebook offers this year. Our largest Facebook increase was $1.03M.

Negotiation strategy

Step 1 is defining the strategy, which often starts by helping you create leverage for your negotiation (e.g. setting up conversations with FAANG recruiters).

Negotiation anchor number

Step 2 we decide on anchor numbers and target numbers with the goal of securing a top of band offer, based on our internal verified data sets.

Negotiation execution plan

Step 3 we create custom scripts for each of your calls, practice multiple 1:1 mock negotiations, and join your recruiter calls to guide you via chat.

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