Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k for corporate and tech workers

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Amazon will boost its maximum base pay to $350,000 for corporate and tech employees, from $160,000 previously, as part of an overall increase in total compensation intended to help recruit top talent and retain existing employees.

The move promises to bring Amazon’s base pay more in line with other big tech companies, including Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft. Historically, Amazon has kept its base pay lower than many of its peers have, making up the difference with restricted stock units and cash compensation such as a sign-on bonus, paid over two years.

Those additional components of compensation will remain in place. Amazon says it’s “increasing overall compensation ranges for most jobs globally, and the increases are much more considerable than we’ve done in the past.”

Amazon announced the plan to employees Monday morning in a post on its internal corporate site. GeekWire viewed the post and confirmed its accuracy with Amazon.

“This past year has seen a particularly competitive labor market and in doing a thorough analysis of various options, weighing the economics of our business and the need to remain competitive for attracting and retaining top talent, we decided to make meaningfully bigger increases to our compensation levels than we do in a typical year,” the company said in the internal post.

The increase in the base pay cap is notable in part because it’s less volatile than stock awards tied to fluctuations in the company’s share price. Amazon shares are down 15% from their peak in July 2021, even after a 13.5% jump in the share price on Friday, the day after the company’s fourth-quarter earnings report last week.

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