this. or also ruthlessly good at the corporate game.
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what’s your source for this?
What I saw in the market these past 3-4 years (as a potential candidate, not in SWEng, but close IT) is that 200k seems like a glass ceiling for anyone outside the FAANG circle, unless you want to go directly into people/unit/dept. mgmt.
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For the high range: Software Engineer Salary in Switzerland
For startups, you might have some datapoints in there, though very few. I only have anecdotal evidence from friends and acquaintances.
Was speaking mostly of sw-eng and eng-management in IT. I don’t have an overview of other roles in the sector.
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Looks like at least half, if not more, of all entries are from Google.
The top is basically entirely big American tech companies.
I see some entries for the others over 150k, and just a few above 200k (and barely above). UBS, Swisscom, all seem to top around 150k.
And this kind of stuff tends to be biased towards people making a lot.
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yes. Also, I’m not sure how you’d control for folks whom:
- know these platforms exist, where you can share salaries, though you only observe and do not share
- folks that don’t know and aren’t even interested.
- folks that know and share
- folks that are so far off extremes that they want to share but wont.
Because you cannot control for the above, the data remains handwavey to say the least.
e.g a good example are AI shops in zurich. Zh is now one of the world centers of machine learning. Every big player has an ai shop in ZH, and also small/smallish tech, though you don’t see any salaries present on these aggregating platforms. (you could sarch for anthropic, openAI, disney research, huawei research etc etc etc )
All of the above have compensation ranges significantly above that amount, and these are the niche companies only, generics or legacy tech can be up there as well.
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Salaries are probably 3 or even 4 modal in switzerland, however, due to the nature and psychology of money, it is somewhat hard to find a de-facto source that will erase all doubts or point a really clear picture for individuals.
I think this is in fact a wanted outcome by some companies, salary transparency is always advertised but never really wanted by an exploitative entity.
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24 years old, Aargau, Annual Gross Salary (13x) :
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08.2023 – 02.2024: 57,200 CHF (Sachbearbeiter)
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03.2024 – 06.2024: 67,600 CHF (Junior Sales Manager)
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07.2024 – 04.2026: 71,500 CHF (Junior Sales Manager)
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04.2026 – Current: 78,000 CHF (Promoted to Sales Manager)
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I keep checking this thread waiting to see which mustachian will land a job at Anthropic first, and show-off with the Annual Salary range: CHF280,000 - CHF680,000 CHF
E.g. Job Application for Research Engineer / Research Scientist, Pre-training at Anthropic Job Application for Research Engineer / Research Scientist, Pre-training at Anthropic
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Not sure the range is exceptional for people working on this (and there’s order of magnitude more people working at deepmind in ZH than anthropic already).
All the top labs in Zürich: MSAI, anthropic, meta, deepmind have huge comp, not sure about the smaller ones like the new mistral office.
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If anything this salary range (assuming it is total comp and not just base salary) sounded a bit disappointing. Don’t get me wrong it is awesome compensation, but after all the stories of AI lab compensation being in the (low) millions, this seems pretty close to senior positions in existing big tech. Remember it’s a range, so it’s unlikely you move from a low seniority in big tech to the top of the compensation band. I’ve seen posts about a VP moving to a member of technical staff at Anthropic, so it being “just” a research scientist doesn’t say anything about expected seniority and that is why I think the compensation band is pretty wide. I’d kinda have expected the AI labs to be in a class of their own on comp.
(Yes yes, I realize 680k CHF isn’t that far off from a million USD)
That’s total comp, not salary right?
Based on Anthropic Software Engineer Salary | $563K-$774K+ | Levels.fyi
I assume so (they don’t have a lot of data, but still might hint at salary being below the range advertised).
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Lets go, I have the ability to do another update after only one month and in the middle of the year lol:
24 years old, Annual Gross Salary (13x) :
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08.2023 – 02.2024: 57,200 CHF (Sachbearbeiter)
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03.2024 – 06.2024: 67,600 CHF (Junior Sales Manager)
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07.2024 – 04.2026: 71,500 CHF (Junior Sales Manager)
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05.2026: 78,000 CHF (Promoted to Sales Manager)
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06.2026 – Current: 81,900 CHF (Sales Manager)
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Why do you think it is an interview or confidence issue? Due to salary height or progression? 120k should be a standard salary, no? Or this is a lie that Swiss employers tell to their foreign workers?
it’s pretty neat that you are getting such regular pay rises!
yes and no.
In most industries and especially in tech, you have multi-modal salary bads.
Usually at least 3:
tier3: capped at a low level < tier2: wannabe leaders < tier1: domain leaders
In a tier 3 company, 120k is totally normal and I don’t think they are lying. Depending on where do you benchmark yourself, it’s still a nice amount of money.
In tier 2, 120k is probably ok for a more junior candidate, however, senior positions are closer/above 200.
In tier one, even juniors are closer to 200 and the top can be many, many digits.
In the message I replied to, the OP said that he has a hard time getting into tier2/1 companies because of the increased competition.
That would point to a generic gap in interviewing skills against his peers, be that technical or otherwise.
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Currently 32, work in a finance adjacent role (already put too much info on here so being intentionally vague)
2018: 83k (first job in Switzerland)
2022:100k (moved companies and industries)
2023: 104k (small little raise)
2024:120k (internal move)
2026: 130k (promotion)
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2026 Update
2019 : 71.5k CHF + 1k (bonus)
2020 : 78k CHF (no bonus)
2021 : 84.5k CHF + 1k (bonus)
2022 : 87.75k CHF + 10k (bonus)
2023 : 97.5k CHF + 5k
2024 : 104k CHF + 5k
2025 : 110.5k CHF
2026 : 118.3k CHF + 13k CHF increase contribution to 2nd pillar each year
Still working in civil engineering in a small (VD) company, I’m now the most senior engineer in the company under the two boss. I don’t really wanna change company now because I’m well integrated in the city (6min commute by bike) and in the company.
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10 years at the same company now. I like my bonus range but honestly I would just prefer to have 120-130k base and a smaller bonus. I expect 110-112k base and 35k bonus in 2027, so similar total comp to 2025.
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I thought you had switched employer for a more focused on private wealth management in the somewhat recent times, am I getting this wrong? How did you take out your 2nd pillar if not so? Am I messing my timeline up?
Well it’s a minor detail 
I was gone for 3 months in 2020 (different bank).
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