Google Research Scientist Salary

Below you’ll find our most up-to-date salary data for L4-L6 research scientist roles at Google as of April 2023. Rora has coached hundreds of MLEs and research scientists over the past 5 years across many of the best companies in the industry (DeepMind, OpenAI, Google Brain, Anthropic, FAIR, MSR, Tesla) and reviewed 1000s of verified offers. In addition to comp numbers, we’ve also included some helpful context below on how Google compares to the highest AI salaries in the industry, taking into account the generative AI wave and the current tech hiring pullback.

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L4 Google Research Scientist Salary

2023 Top of Band Numbers

Base Salary

$190K

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Equity (4-years)

$600K

Signing Bonus

$75K

‍

Performance Bonus

15%

While Google often lowballs, they are also the company where we see the most extreme above band offers. For L4 RS roles we've negotiated $200K base, $1.25M in equity and over $100K as the signing bonus. This is an extreme outlier though and in most cases you should target the numbers outlined above.

L5 Google Research Scientist Salary

2023 Top of Band Numbers

Base Salary

$230K

‍

Equity (4-years)

$1.2M

‍

Signing Bonus

$100K

‍

Performance Bonus

15%

‍

We've seen equity go as high as $1.8M for L5 RS roles in the past year. But, top of band is closer to $1.2M as of April 2023.

L6 Google Research Scientist Salary

2023 Top of Band Numbers

Base Salary

$250K

‍

Equity (4-years)

$1.8M

‍

Signing Bonus

$100K

‍

Performance Bonus

20%

For L6+ ML roles the bands are very wide. You should use the numbers above as a guide but each offer should be analyzed on a case-by-case basis.

ML/AI Compensation Landscape

To call the current AI hiring market unique would be an understatement. On one hand, big tech companies are doing frequent layoffs and freezing hiring for many groups. But simultaneously, hundreds of tech companies have declared AI their top priority for the next few years and are ramping up hiring in this area. As a result, we’ve seen huge variance in AI offers, with careful negotiation making the difference since companies and recruiters are struggling to balance budgets while hitting AI growth goals.

Recently we shared a detailed report on salary negotiation for AI Researchers in 2023, which included this table outlining the highest offers from our recent PHD negotiations. While top of band is not always achievable, it is still a good guide for which companies are paying the most and how much can still be negotiated despite a slower hiring market.

Research Scientist Negotiations

As you can see from the table above, salary negotiation can still significantly impact total compensation. Many research scientists we speak with say it is hard to get a sense for current negotiation strategies as the market is so different now compared to even 1 year ago. To help with that, we’ve compiled a number of resources below that we’d recommend you review before starting any negotiation.

First, the salary negotiation section of this article (2023 AI salary Negotiation Report) is certainly worth a read.

Additionally, it’s often helpful to just hear first-hand accounts of other people going through the negotiation process. As you will see, recruiters are certainly putting more consistent pressure on candidates, but this can be managed throughout the negotiation.

Hopefully these resources will help, but each negotiation is unique, and the best next step would be to jump on a free 1-1 call with a negotiation lead from Rora.

1:1 Salary Negotiation Support

We've negotiated more than $25M in Google offers this year. Our largest Google increase was $720K.

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).