A senior software engineer at Anthropic averages $621K in total pay on Levels.fyi’s US page for the company, against $416K at Google’s L5, the level Levels.fyi titles “Senior SWE”. The figures are self-reported by users, and Anthropic’s average rests on 11 data points.
That is 1.49 times Google’s senior average, a gap of about $205K, by our arithmetic. About 71% of the gap is stock: $305K against $159K.
Business Pill · Power Law
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on power-law outcomes. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss these pay figures or companies.
The key insight: As we read Levels.fyi’s self-reported company pages, a senior software engineer at Anthropic averages $621K in total pay, 1.49 times Google’s L5 and 2.64 times Microsoft’s Senior SDE, by our arithmetic. Anthropic’s figure rests on 11 data points.
We read each company’s US software engineer page on Levels.fyi on 6 November and took the level that the site itself titles senior. At Anthropic, the “Senior Software Engineer” average is $621,136 from 11 data points: $316,364 base, $304,773 stock and no bonus.
At Google, L5, titled “Senior SWE”, averages $416,420 from 59 data points. At Nvidia, IC3, titled “Senior Engineer”, averages $318,650 from 22. At Microsoft, level 63, titled “Senior SDE”, averages $235,259 from 33.
Anthropic’s senior average is 1.95 times Nvidia’s and 2.64 times Microsoft’s, by our arithmetic. Nvidia’s $318,650 is also the middle of the three big-tech figures.
Against Google’s L5, Anthropic’s base is $88,654 higher and its stock $146,061 higher, by our arithmetic, so stock is about 71% of the gap. Google’s L5 average includes a $29,998 bonus; Anthropic’s shows none.
This measure differs from the one in our earlier piece on new offers. That piece used a Levels.fyi chart of median new-offer pay from January 2024 to October 2026, which put Anthropic’s senior median at $570K against Stripe’s $363K. The figures here are averages of all data points at the level on each company page.
Labs Without Titled Levels
Levels.fyi lists OpenAI’s levels as L2 to L7 and Meta’s as E3 to E9 without senior titles, so we did not place them on the chart. On the all-levels US figures, which mix levels and are not comparable to the senior averages, OpenAI’s median is $640,000 from 10 data points and Meta’s $432,600 from 131.
As we read the split, about 71% of the gap with Google’s L5 is stock, $146,061, against $88,654 of base, by our arithmetic.
As we read the levels, we used the level each company page titles senior; OpenAI and Meta list untitled levels, so they are left off the chart.
As we read the two measures, these are averages of all data points at a level, while our earlier piece used median new offers; both put Anthropic’s senior pay above $560K.
Brandur, former Stripe engineer, on X, as quoted in our earlier piece
“engineering comp bands are so much higher than Stripe’s that they more or less don’t even overlap”
Three Implications
FOR ENGINEERS COMPARING OFFERS The figures are self-reported averages, and Anthropic’s senior figure rests on 11 data points.
FOR EMPLOYERS Against Google’s L5, stock accounts for about 71% of the gap, by our arithmetic.
FOR READING THE FIGURES Levels are matched by the titles Levels.fyi gives, and Anthropic’s page data are dated 24 September.
The framework says: “Expertise shifts toward reviewing outputs, coordinating multiple agents, and making strategic decisions.”
The framework does not discuss pay or these companies; we cite it for its view of how engineering work is changing.
What Is Not Established
The figures are self-reported to Levels.fyi, not company pay data, and Anthropic’s senior average rests on 11 data points. Anthropic’s page data are dated 24 September; the other pages are dated 1 to 6 November. Levels are matched here by the titles Levels.fyi gives, not by any company. Stock values depend on how each person valued equity, and Anthropic’s stock is in a private company that has filed to list. The xAI and Apple pages did not load when we read them.
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This week’s issue: for two years the AI build-out was priced as a growthstory. This week it started being priced as a credit story.
On Levels.fyi’s self-reported data, Anthropic’s senior engineers average $621K in total pay, 1.49 times Google’s L5, 1.95 times Nvidia’s IC3 and 2.64 times Microsoft’s Senior SDE, by our arithmetic. Most of the gap with Google is stock.
A note on sourcing. The pay figures, level titles, data-point counts and page dates come from the page data of Levels.fyi’s US software engineer pages for Anthropic, Google, Nvidia, Microsoft, OpenAI and Meta, read on 6 November 2026; they are self-reported by users. The ratios, gaps and stock share of the gap are our arithmetic.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
