Microsoft's salaries announced: Which field earns more?

Microsoft represents a familiar dilemma in the tech world: layoffs on the one hand, and bonuses for AI experts on the other.

The tech firm has invested heavily in artificial intelligence, spending billions on its flagship vehicle, Copilot. While their relationship has experienced some recent cracks, the company is also OpenAI's largest investor.

Microsoft is encouraging its employees to use artificial intelligence tools more frequently while also giving generous bonuses to retain employees who specialize in this field, according to an internal document published by Business Insider.

9,000 people were laid off

The tech giant announced last week that it would lay off approximately 9,000 more employees globally "as part of its goal to reduce costs."

The move is seen as the company's biggest wave of layoffs since cutting 10,000 jobs at the beginning of 2023 to curb rapid growth during the pandemic.

According to the latest figures, Microsoft has a total of 228,000 full-time employees, and the layoffs represent less than 4% of its total workforce. The layoffs are reportedly spread across different teams and country operations, with streamlining particularly at management levels.

The company is still hiring, though.

$284,000 to software engineers

Business Insider has published the fields and approximate salaries of Microsoft's most frequently hired overseas employees. According to the report, software engineers can earn a base salary of $284,000 annually, while product managers can earn up to $250,000.

Microsoft subsidiary LinkedIn is also hiring foreign workers in fields like machine learning. A software engineer working in machine learning at LinkedIn can earn as much as $336,000.

These figures do not include bonuses.

Microsoft's base salary list, based on approximately 5,400 applications submitted in the first quarter of 2025, is as follows:

Applied sciences: $127,200 - $261,103

Business analytics: $159,300 - $191,580

Business planning: $117,200 - $201,900

Work schedule management: $102,380 - $195,100

Cloud network engineering: $122,700 - $220,716

Cloud solution architecture: $130,000 - $207,285

Construction project management: $150,000 - $193,690

Customer experience engineering: $126,422 - $239,585

Customer experience program management: $141,865 to $201,508

Customer solutions architecture: $122,730 - $225,000

Data analytics: $132,385 - $205,000

Data center operations management: $115,000 - $176,900

Data engineering: $144,855 - $264,000

Data science: $121,200 - $274,500

Demand planning: $147,000 - $204,550

Digital cloud solution architecture: $155,085 - $217,589

Electrical engineering: $138,995 - $247,650

Financial analysis: $91,100 to $213,800

Hardware Engineering: $136,000 - $270,641

Product Design: $125,100 - $208,058

Product management: $122,800 - $250,000

Product marketing: $113,350 - $213,200

Research sciences: $146,054 - $208,000

Silicon Engineering: $116,334 - $275,000

Site reliability engineering: $135,100 to $236,670

Software engineering: $82,971 - $284,000

Solutions specialists: $144,000 to $209,300

Supply planning: $131,300 - $193,270

Technical support consulting: $114,290 - $153,984

Technical support engineering: $80,371-$176,606

Technology professionals: $168,800 - $200,000

UX research: $138,560 - $177,148