How Much Does Apple Pay Its Employees? Here Are the Exact Salaries of Staff Jobs, Including Developers, Engineers, and Consultants. New federal filings submitted by Apple reveal how much the tech giant pays its employees for a variety of roles.
By Sherin Shibu Edited by Melissa Malamut
Key Takeaways
- New federal filings show how much Apple pays some of its 80,000 employees.
- The data reveals that Apple software developers can make as much as $264,200, while Apple's AI machine learning researchers have base salaries of up to $312,000.
- The tech giant's CEO, Tim Cook, made $74.6 million in 2024.
Apple is one of the most valuable companies in the world, with a market capitalization of $3.12 trillion at the time of writing — and now new data reveals how much Apple pays its workers, from AI machine learning researchers to data scientists.
According to new federal filings, obtained by Business Insider, Apple is paying software developers as much as $264,200, while software engineer managers make as much as $378,700. The filings, which featured several software engineering roles, reveal that Apple pays engineers focused on data up to $329,600 while engineers focused on applications earn more, up to $378,700. Human interface designers, meanwhile, can make substantially more, up to $468,500.
Other big tech companies compensate their employees similarly for comparable roles. For example, Meta pays $120,000 to $480,000, Google pays $109,180 to $340,000, and Microsoft pays $82,971 to $284,000 for software engineering talent.
When it comes to AI researchers, Apple pays the role up to $312,000 in base salary — a far cry from Meta, which has recently awarded over $200 million in compensation for AI talent amid the ongoing AI talent wars. Meta has poached four AI researchers from Apple as of Monday, per Bloomberg.
The Apple data arrives from documents that the company filed with the U.S. Department of Labor in the second quarter of the year while hiring foreign workers. The data only applies to foreign hires and discloses base salary, not including stock options, signing bonuses, or other compensation.
Other roles are paid as follows, according to the filings:
- Data Scientist: $105,550 to $322,400
- Electronics Engineer: $108,160 to $264,200
- Hardware Developers: $124,942 to $293,800
- Machine Learning Engineer: $143,100 to $312,000
- Professional Services Consultant: $100,200 to $258,700
- Tools and Automation Engineer: $105,602 to $293,800
While these roles can pay well into the six figures, there's one role at Apple that makes the most money of all: CEO.
According to Apple's annual proxy statement, filed this year with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the tech giant's CEO, Tim Cook, made $74.6 million in 2024, including base salary, bonuses, and stock options.
Apple CEO Tim Cook. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Cook explained in a 2023 interview with singer Dua Lipa that Apple looks for traits like curiosity and creativity from new hires and recruits workers from "all walks of life."
Related: Here's How Much 8 CEOs Made in 2024, From JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon to Disney's Bob Iger
"It's an incredible feeling to work with people that bring out the best in you," Cook stated in the interview.
Apple has 80,000 employees and claims to have created two million jobs across the country, including 1.53 million U.S. jobs due to the App Store ecosystem.
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