Meta—the company formerly known as Facebook—is at an inflection point right now. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is betting its existence on the development of an augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) ecosystem he terms the “metaverse.” Meanwhile, fears of an economic recession and a decline in ad revenues are impacting the health of the company’s core apps, including Instagram and Facebook.

Meta’s survival will hinge on hiring the best and brightest technologists—and retaining them for the long term. But how much is Meta paying its entry-level technologists, especially with Zuckerberg emphasizing efficiency and “aggressive goals”? For an answer, we can turn to levels.fyi, which crowdsources compensation data at various tech companies; specifically, we’re examining compensation for software engineers, product managers, product designers, and software engineering managers:

That seems like pretty good compensation for all roles—especially if Meta’s stock recovers from its recent dip. But how does Meta match up against its rivals when it comes to pay? Let’s compare entry-level software engineer pay at TikTok, Meta, Snap, and Google:

Yes, Meta’s pay is comparable to what you find at those other companies, but again, so much depends on stock price—a dip in the markets can substantially impact a social media technologist’s annual take-home and net worth. Indeed, as competition stiffens and the economic headwinds potentially grow more fierce, Meta will have no choice but to continue to pay comparable rates.

Meta has also slowed its hiring in recent months, including in the ultra-important “metaverse” arena. It seems as if Zuckerberg really expects his technologists to be more efficient than ever before, and do more with less; he can only hope that strategy will work out in the long term.