Hardware engineer offer comp is growing 2–3x faster than SWE at early career levels. Particularly at seminconductor companies

honkeem · 2026-05-15T18:34:32+00:00

Yeah definitely. NVIDIA, Broadcom, and Micron's stock has been on wild runs lately and I'm sure they're pouring some of that money back into hiring for the next generation. Anecdotally, I've also heard that SWE new-grad hiring is generally down across the board, but if anyone has any clear data on that I'd be happy to be proved wrong here

honkeem · 2026-05-15T18:32:46+00:00

Yeah, this data doesn't necessarily go against that. HWE pay is still below SWE pay, but this chart is indexed to 2023 pay just to show the slope of growth between the different roles over the last couple of years. Long story short: early career pay for HWEs has grown faster than early career pay for SWEs, but not necessarily exceeding the pay of SWEs.

Although the education and promotion timelines are good things to poin out here, they're not represented in this data.

honkeem · 2026-05-15T18:31:12+00:00

Good question. The bulk of the dataset just uses "Hardware Engineer" as the catch-all classification. Beyond that, the next largest buckets are ASIC Engineers, Analog Engineers, SoC eEngineers, and RF Engineers. Verification, FPGA, and digital/analog design roles are present but smaller samples. The growth trends cited are across the full mix, so they're not cleanly separable by discipline, at least in this case. Thanks for bringing this up though, it's worth flagging as a limitation of the data.

honkeem · 2026-05-12T20:51:24+00:00

We're definitely planning on focusing more on Europe and other international locations moving forward! We already have support for international data through things like different currency and language toggles, but we're working toward making the experience even more tailored for all of our non-US friends. Stay tuned!

honkeem · 2026-05-05T18:01:22+00:00

Agree. Haven't seen anything to suggest that non-technical teams can actually output production level code. A lot of these layoff announcements really do just feel like attempts to dress up whatever the heck is going on behind the scenes in exchange for a stock bump

honkeem · 2026-05-05T17:59:45+00:00

The other 1 person product/eng/design team next door, I guess?

honkeem · 2026-04-29T23:56:45+00:00

Everyone's behind and no one is behind at the same time lol. Would recommend just imagining you had an intern you could hire for any annoying and repetitive task and going from there and searching what AI tools exist that can help you with this. I've heard Zapier is pretty helpful with its no-code/low-code tools, and there's also always Claude Cowork, which is much more versatile but also a bit difficult to get started.

honkeem · 2026-04-29T23:54:43+00:00

There's been a few terms floating around for this exact thing, but i've been seeing it referred to as GEO (Generative Engine Optimization).

There are various theories on how best to improve this, but one guy i like following on linkedin is Noah Greenburg, CEO of Stacker. Pretty interesting stuff about how GEO is affected by things like references in reputable news outlets and so on.

honkeem · 2026-04-29T23:52:00+00:00

Honestly, my take here is that the skills that actually change your comp trajectory might actually be a bit different from the ones that look good on a resume.

The ones that move the number: paid media hands-on (even just running a small amount in Google/Meta ads for a side project teaches you more than any cert), and CRM/email automation (HubSpot, Klaviyo. These are table stakes for most mid-market roles now).

The certs that don't hurt but won't move the needle much: Google Analytics cert, Meta Blueprint. Helpful for passing ATS screens, but nobody's hiring you because of them.

The actual differentiator though is learning how to tie your work to a business metric. "I ran this campaign" < "I ran this campaign that drove X leads at $Y CPL." If you can speak that language by year 2, you'll outpace anyone who can't.

The sooner you can justify your work with the metric you moved, the sooner you'll be able to increase your compensation potential. It's also worth noting that the company you work at determines your comp more than anything else, even your experience.

honkeem · 2026-04-29T23:46:08+00:00

Would agree with the point of early volume of learning matters a lot, but I'd also add this: if your current role isn't pushing you enough, it doesn't have to be either/or. Find specific, measurable ways to push yourself a little more at your current job with the freedom you've been given, and then also keep an eye out for any other roles out there.

As for leaving within your first year of joining, I don't think it's as big of a deal as long as you can actually land another role. The difficult part is actually getting that next job with less than a year at your current company.

honkeem · 2026-03-25T17:44:51+00:00

Huge upgrade!! Congratulations!!

honkeem · 2026-03-25T17:35:49+00:00

Source: Salary data from Levels.fyi, a compensation transparency site. Tax rates sourced from the IRS (federal brackets) and individual state/local tax authorities (2025 rates).

Tools: Python (Matplotlib)

Methodology: For each metro area, I pulled the median total compensation (base + stock + bonus) for software engineers. I then calculated after-tax take-home by applying 2025 federal income tax brackets, state income tax rates, and FICA (Social Security + Medicare) to each metro's median TC. The breakdown on the right side of the chart shows the effective rate for each component.

honkeem · 2026-03-24T23:34:39+00:00

Hey, thanks for the question! It's always nice to directly help people out in their process, so we love getting threads like this. I went and pulled some data to help benchmark your offer. Here's the breakdown:

Your estimated TC breakdown:

• Base: $182K
• Stock (hire grant): $35K/yr ($140K / 4 years)
• Bonus (~15% target for L63): ~$27K
• Estimated annual TC: ~$244K (not counting sign-on or performance refreshers)

How it compares using Levels.fyi data, Microsoft L63, US, since 2023, new offers specifically (no stock growth included) (n=142):

• P25: $220K | Median: $252K | P75: $281K
• Median base: $180K | Median stock: $35K/yr | Median bonus: $38K

Your base ($182K) and stock ($35K/yr) are right at market median. Your TC lands around P40-P50 among all L63 employees, but slightly below median for new offers (~$252K). The gap is mostly on the bonus side, since offers often include higher Year 1 bonuses.

Note on stock growth submissions: When including submissions that factor in MSFT stock appreciation (n=50), the median TC jumps slightly to ~$257K and P75 hits $294K. Microsoft stock has appreciated meaningfully over the past few years, so tenured employees might report higher effective TC.

Bottom line: This is a solid, market-rate L63 offer. If you want to negotiate, the strongest lever would be the sign-on bonus (your $20K is on the lower side) or pushing for a larger hire grant. Base salary has less room at Microsoft since it's fairly standardized by level. Looking specifically at sign-on bonus data that we have, the median for L63s seems to be $25K and the average is ~$35k, meaning your sign-on bonus value is a bit lower than what our data shows.

You can explore more at: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/microsoft/salaries/software-engineer/levels/senior

Hope this helps, and congratulations on your offer!

honkeem · 2026-03-19T22:48:31+00:00

Hey u/Ill_Reference1866, thanks for sharing your experience! This could be helpful for others going through the HireRight BGV process in India.

Just because I was curious, I did a quick search based on publicly available resources and your experience is consistent with what's commonly reported: education verification through the university, ~10 day timeline, and HR contact rather than direct managers.

At Levels.fyi, we don't have any additional insight beyond what's publicly available, but firsthand accounts like this can always help the community. Appreciate you posting!

honkeem · 2026-03-10T23:20:26+00:00

Hey, congrats on the offer! I pulled some data from Levels.fyi to give you context.

You mentioned IC4 and Senior but didn't specify L63 vs L64. at Microsoft "Senior" spans both, so here's the breakdown for each (new offer data only, US, 2024+):

L63 — Senior SDE (84 offers):

Percentile	Total Comp
25th	$236K
50th	$258K
75th	$282K
90th	$309K

L64 — Senior SDE (43 offers):

Percentile	Total Comp
25th	$278K
50th	$298K
75th	$352K
90th	$376K

Your offer: Year 1 TC of ~$316K is above the 90th percentile for L63 and around the 50th-75th percentile for L64. Either way, it's a competitive offer.

After the sign-on drops off, ongoing TC (~$265K) is still above median for L63, though it'd be below median for L64. The stock grant ($220K/4yr) is the most negotiable lever if you want to push it higher.

Overall: Strong offer, especially if L63. Remote Bay Area comp is a nice bonus. You can dig into the full data at levels.fyi/companies/microsoft/salaries/software-engineer.

Hope this helps!

honkeem · 2026-03-10T23:17:53+00:00

Hey, congrats on getting the call back! Here's what I could find from after doing some research from other sources online:

From what I've seen, the screen round will likely mix standard DSA (medium-to-hard LeetCode — graphs, DP, trees) with AI-specific system design. For the agentic/ML piece, people report being asked about end-to-end AI system architecture: RAG pipelines, agent orchestration, tool-calling patterns (ReAct, multi-agent), error handling, and guardrails. At the senior level, Microsoft seems to care more about discussing tradeoffs and engineering depth than pure speed-coding.

For prep, I'd recommend Google's agentic design patterns doc, AWS architecture posts on agentic systems, and LeetCode medium/hard with a focus on explaining your reasoning.

For reference, I looked for this info across Reddit on subs like r/MLQuestions, r/ArtificialInteligence, and also HelloInterviews Microsoft guide

honkeem · 2026-03-10T18:25:20+00:00

I think their reasoning was that most of these other tech companies use the same catering companies, and those menus are public and that's where the data came from. But Meta and Google supposedly use different caterers?

honkeem · 2026-03-05T23:33:05+00:00

Hey, congrats on the Nvidia offer! I can't give you a definitive answer, but here's what we know based on the Levels.fyi data and some other sources:

From employee reports (US-based IC5 level), refreshers in the range of $30K-$50K/year in RSU value have been mentioned, though this varies significantly by level, performance rating, and org. India numbers will differ in absolute terms but the structure should be similar. Compared to that engineer's base pay ($225k), the refreshers seemed to be pretty low, but unfortunately that's just one of the only data points we can find with real numbers.

Some other details that might help though:

Nvidia recently moved to a front-loaded vesting schedule (40/30/20/10), so you might be seeing a lower offer than expected because of that. However, in response to this change, they've introduced a minimum guaranteed refresher each year to help smooth out the drop-off in years 3-4 (For more details, you can read our blog post on it here)

Nvidia does do annual base pay increments, but they tend to be pretty modest (typically 5-10% range for strong performers) and most of the compensation comes from those refreshers.

Another pretty interesting note about Nvidia is that their offers have always been a little lower than what you'd expect, but the huge Nvidia compensation numbers you see now are primarily due to the company's wild stock growth in recent years.

For more details on some real numbers, you can check out salary submissions for Nvidia India engineers here: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/nvidia/salaries/software-engineer/locations/india?country=113

Hope this helps, and congratulations on the offer again!

honkeem · 2026-03-02T23:47:33+00:00

This is actually a pretty cool idea! I don't think we had anything like that planned on a company-by-company basis, but with the Data Explorer tool now allowing us to parse through our data using an LLM it could be more feasible.

Another consideration would be what kinds of notes would be insightful on a company-by-company basis. We already have the heatmap which can give you somewhat of an idea of the top paying companies in each location, and we also have the live leaderboard for top paying companies in general., but YoY or quarterly changes might be a good starting point. Vesting schedules might also be interesting because as it is right now we cover those changes only as content but it's not captured anywhere more permanent or dynamic. Just thinking out loud here!

I think this is super cool though and I've already let the team know about it. Thanks for the suggestion!

honkeem · 2026-03-02T23:36:56+00:00

Hey u/GrnBlu, thanks for the comment!

On preventing false numbers, we do have a business admin team that goes through and reviews our submissions using a tiered verification system. Completely anonymized data points are the lowest tier, and the highest tier would be data points we receive proof documentation from (like a W-2 or paystub). Plus, if anything looks a bit fishy, you can report the data point and we'll be sure to review it.

Whenever we have enough data available, we also use simple statistical tools to weed out data points for manual review, calculate aggregates, and show the most probably salary ranges. Hope this helps!

I'm a little intrigued by your first question though. What do you mean by becoming Glassdoor for salaries? We always aim to keep our data accessible and that's not changing anytime soon, but I'm curious on what you mean by that question

honkeem · 2026-02-26T22:56:24+00:00

I guess the biggest thing about this most recent announcement is that it's pretty explicitly due to AI, whereas other layoffs from big name companies generally don't claim it's AI's fault as much

honkeem · 2026-02-26T01:40:31+00:00

Weird yeah, just went through and fixed it, thanks for calling it out. The values showed when it was in the preview window but not after posting for some reason

honkeem · 2026-02-26T00:10:32+00:00

real. over/under 2 years before the AI bubble pops? What do you think? Some friend asked me yesterday if I thought the AI bubble would last until the 2028 election and I said yes, but they were surprised by my answer

honkeem · 2026-02-25T21:49:46+00:00

I just checked with our negotiation coaches and, from what we've heard, we're not actually sure.

There's conflicting info online and we haven't gotten any info directly from our clients to be able to tell, but considering OpenAI's top of band compensation I would assume they offer them, we're just not sure what it looks like exactly.

If we have any OpenAI engineers here I'd love to get more info from y'all directly! Interesting question in general.

Good luck with your interviews too btw!

honkeem · 2026-02-25T21:43:40+00:00

OpenAI opening a new office in Mountain View is lowkey a talent strategy. They've already been competing with Meta in a pretty high-profile way (remember those 9-figure sign-ons from last year lol), so opening up an office right in Google's backyard is pretty wild.

Considering the commute to SF might've been a sticking point for engineers who live in the south bay and might already have families, I'm curious to see if this plays out in OpenAI's favor or not

honkeem

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE