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Walmart is investing big bucks in its tech workforce as it looks to beef up its e-commerce business.
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A software engineer can earn a base salary of as much as $286,000, according to company filings.
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Data shows how much the retail giant pays for roles in software development and project management.
Walmart is trying to transform itself from America’s grocery store into a global tech titan and is reshaping its workforce in the process.
The 63-year-old company has been the largest retailer in the world for decades, and has held the top spot on the Fortune 500 list since 2013. But it has also invested heavily over the last several years in becoming a powerhouse of e-commerce and retail media.
Salary data shows how serious Walmart is about competing with the likes of Amazon, Facebook, and Google for talent to beef up its tech.
Company filings with the US Department of Labor show Walmart sought to hire around 1,750 workers through the US H-1B visa program in the first half of this reporting year, largely in software development, business intelligence, and IT. That number is up substantially from about 1,100 for the same period two years before.
This publicly available work visa data — which companies are required to disclose to the government — only refers to foreign hires and doesn’t include equity or other benefits that employees can receive in addition to their base pay.
A Walmart spokesperson said the company’s compensation packages include salary, bonus opportunities, and stock awards, and that it invests in employees’ career growth.
Still, the reported pay rates are benchmarked against industry standards for US workers. That can shed light on how much Walmart employees earn in certain roles, and where the company is looking to grow.
Walmart boasts a global workforce of 2.1 million people, of whom about 1.6 million are in the US, making it the largest private employer in both cases.
More than two-thirds of the company’s 45,000 open positions worldwide as of July 23 are for jobs in Walmart stores and Sam’s Club warehouses, while about 550 openings are tech and analyst roles.
The company has been expanding in tech, hiring in July a new EVP of AI acceleration, product and design who reports directly into the CEO and recruiting for an EVP of AI platforms.
Other employers, including Amazon, submit work visa data, and Walmart’s salaries are largely in line with those for similar roles at the e-commerce giant.
Most of Walmart’s white-collar jobs are based either in its Bentonville, Arkansas, headquarters or in one of the company’s satellite offices in the Bay Area. According to the H-1B data, about half of the positions are in Bentonville, while a third are in California, and most of the remainder are assigned to sites in Texas, New Jersey, Washington, and Virginia.
