Self-driving power-player salaries revealed: How much Waymo, Cruise, and Zoox employees make, from engineers to managers

Argo AI employees

Many employees at the top self-driving companies make six-figure salaries, according to data the companies have disclosed to the US government.
Business Insider analyzed 2020 data from Argo AI, Aurora Innovation, Cruise, Waymo, and Zoox.
The positions included in this story have salaries ranging from $115,040 to $234,000.
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Building a self-driving car is an enormously difficult task that requires gifted engineers who are willing to spend years on projects that might never make their way to the public. And so the competition for talent is intense — as made clear by what the top companies in the space shell out.

Five major players in the industry — Argo AI, Aurora Innovation, Cruise, Waymo, and Zoox — tend to pay six-figure salaries, according to data from the US Office of Foreign Labor Certification. The agency requires companies to disclose the amount of money they offer permanent and temporary employees from outside the US to ensure the firms aren't paying them less than the average wage earned by their peers. The salary data Business Insider analyzed is from 2020.

Aurora, Argo, and Zoox declined a request for comment, and Cruise did not respond to a request for comment.

Here's what some of the autonomous-vehicle industry's leaders are paying their employees recruited from outside the US.

Argo AI

Argo AI has received investments from Ford and Volkswagen, the former of which plans to begin using Argo's technology for autonomous ride-hailing and delivery services in 2022.

Hardware engineer II: $135,000 to $180,000
Senior hardware engineer: $162,000 to $225,500
Senior software engineer: $175,500 to $234,000
Software engineer II: $135,000 to $181,667

Aurora Innovation

Founded by former members of Alphabet, Tesla, and Uber's autonomy programs, Aurora is working on an automated-driving system that could one day power semi-trucks and consumer vehicles.

Software engineer: $123,055 to $172,875

Cruise

Purchased by General Motors in 2016, Cruise plans to launch a robotaxi service in San Francisco, but has not disclosed a timeline after pushing back a planned 2019 launch date.

Engineering manager: $193,187 to $231,113
Senior machine-learning engineer: $143,630 to $208,900
Senior network engineer: $140,987 to $198,600
Senior software engineer: $166,545 to $208,751
Senior systems test engineer: $140,133 to $175,533
Senior technical product manager: $176,667 to $215,000
Senior technical program manager: $161,900 to $206,600
Software engineer: $119,122 to $162,400

Waymo

Seen by many experts as the autonomous-vehicle industry's leader, Waymo has been operating a robotaxi service in parts of Arizona since 2018.

Business analyst: $117,000
Software engineer: $153,870
Data scientist: $149,000
Hardware engineer: $166,429
Manufacturing engineer: $150,000 to $156,000
Mechanical engineer: $144,500
Product manager: $170,167
Program manager: $165,667
Research scientist: $188,333
Systems engineer: $155,714
Technical program manager: $186,571
Test engineer: $121,667

A Waymo representative said the salary data shared with the US Office of Foreign Labor Certification is not reflective of the average compensation at the company since employees recruited from abroad tend to be less experienced than their coworkers. The representative also said the data doesn't account for the bonuses and equity awards Waymo employees receive.

Zoox

Amazon announced in June its plans to spend a reported $1.2 billion to acquire Zoox, which — unlike many of its peers — is developing a vehicle designed for autonomy from the ground-up.