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Comment by DaiPlusPlus | Hacker News Reader

I started off at MSFT over a decade ago and though I haven't worked there in quite a while I'll say that these numbers look very old to me - there's no way Level 59's base salary range is 74-110k today (e.g. about 3 years ago, a new-hire Lvl 59 friend of mine said he was on $115k base and he said he felt he was in the middle)

The publicly disclosed numbers on Levels.fyi are much closer to reality, IMO.

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74k is definitely too low. In 2019, 59 was 98k. Usually goes up 1-2% each year. 115k sounds high. Each level technically has a 20% range up and down from the compa mid-point, but most offers are made dead-center. Intern return offers tend to be the juiciest 59s. In some cases college grads returning from their internships make more than those with 15-20 years of experience at 64. It's wild.

Yeah, I was thinking the same. I came in to level 59 in 2008 and my base was 80k-ish. These numbers seem really old.

Am a manager at Microsoft so I can see where the policy-based midpoints are once regional adjustments are made. The base numbers look low by a rough 20% compared to what a Redmond HQ dev would get paid at the given level number. Bonuses are based on a level-dependent target percentage which you can find if you search for it.

And yeah, the Levels.fyi base pay distributions are closer to the truth.

> Am a manager at Microsoft

Are you on a cool product team and hiring? I'm considering rejoining the mothership

Sorry, out of interest in staying somewhat anonymous here I’m going to avoid giving any details, but based on your question and criteria I’m inferring from other comments I’d say I probably don’t have what you’re looking for.

What is level 59 equivalent to in terms years of experience?

Zero. Fresh-faced just-graduated college-hires are Level 59.

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