San Francisco, Aug 29 (IANS): Google and Meta (formerly Facebook) tend to pay their software engineers more than their Big Tech counterparts, a new study has shown.

According to new data from an anonymous forum for tech employees Blind, Apple and Microsoft pay the least on average for entry-level engineers, but for senior engineers, compensation becomes more comparable across the industry.

This new study was first spotted by The Verge.

"Google has one of the most balanced or consistent pay bands among Big Tech companies. This means it's rare for someone at a lower job level to get paid more than someone at a higher level," the study said.

"Meta engineers appear to level up the fastest and have some of the highest pay," it added.

The data is based on compensation packages self-reported by Blind users from January of last year to this month.

Moreover, the study showed that Amazon’s promotions can take longer than its peers, and its pay ranges for engineers are the widest.

In addition, Microsoft has several job levels for software engineers, which may allow the company to give out more promotions.

"Microsoft has many job levels for software engineers, which might give the company more flexibility to hand out more promotions. However, their total compensation is lower than their peers across the board up until staff software engineer," the study stated.

Recently, a Google software engineer in his 20s has said that he works for only an hour a day and earns a salary of $150,000 (about Rs 1.2 crore) yearly.

Devon explained that he starts his week by writing code for "a decent part" of any given task before sending it off to his manager.

He had interned at Google and knew that if he got the job, he would not have to work very hard.