* 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.
* Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
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.
SEE ALSO: Uber is hiring 140 engineers in India and offering a $500 allowance for employees to set up home offices
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.
* Electrical engineer: $115,040 to $135,000
* Engineering manager: $171,933 to $192,500
* Firmware engineer: $123,464 to $152,333
* Mechanical engineer: $124,100 to $140,667
* Senior software engineer: $156,582 to $203,333
* Software engineer: $134,224 to $165,000
* Read more:
* A top industry executive says there are 3 major players in autonomous vehicles, and Waymo, the most talked-about company in the business, isn't one of them
* 5 self-driving-car companies primed to survive the wave of consolidation slamming the industry
* Experts rank Tesla, Waymo and 16 other power players in the world of self-driving cars
* The CEO of the Amazon-backed self-driving car startup Aurora explains why testing its tech on a computer is better than testing it in the real world
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