When you work at a FAANG company for a while, if you're reasonably financially mindful, you end up amassing enough wealth to become financially independent. I'm not there yet, but I'm well on the way.
Once you hit the milestone of being financially independent, you meet a crossroad for what you really want to do with your life. Many follow the FIRE movement and decide to retire early. Others just continue earning and amassing more and more wealth to either stockpile or to spend on a more and more lavish lifestyle. Then there are those who decide their money can go a lot further in the world through effective charitable giving than they could ever hope to help with their own bare hands (i.e. writing code -> earning paycheck -> funding many life-saving programs).
For those working in Big Tech, it can be interesting to then look at which employers offer the best employee donation matching programs to increase your giving capacity.
For reference, most of this data here is sourced from Double the Donation, who provide detailed information about each individual companies corporate giving programs. I will also be including several FAANG-adjacent companies in this list too for completeness.
The Companies
Microsoft
Kicking it off is my employer, Microsoft. They actually have an awesome giving program, matching donations up to 15k USD for employees in many countries around the world, including Australia. Microsoft also matches volunteer time, by donating $25/hr to the charities you volunteer for.
Meta (Facebook)
Meta does not provide any employee donation matching program, which is a shame. They do however pay their employees very well, so if you are a Meta employee, you can still give a lot of money to charity, just without the employer match (more on this further below).
Apple
Apple matches employee donations 1:1 up to 10k USD. This is also a great program, and they are on par with Microsoft for employee volunteer time being matched at $25/hr.
Amazon
Amazon does not provide an employee donation or volunteer matching program.
Netflix
Netflix offers employees an exceptional 2:1 matching program. For every $1 an employee donates to a charity, Netflix contributes $2, up to a $10,000 annual limit. This means employees can donate $10,000 of their own money and have a total of $30,000 directed to their chosen charity. Just as Netflix prides itself on paying at the top of the market, it also matches donations at the top of the market.
Alphabet (Google)
Alphabet provides their employees with 10k of 1:1 employee donation matching, on par with Apple. Their time-matching is a lot lower than competitors, at just $10/hr.
Tesla
Tesla does not provide any employee donation matching program nor any volunteer hour matching program.
NVIDIA
NVIDIA matches employee donations 1:1 up to 10k USD, similar to Apple and Alphabet. Their volunteer matching is however higher than all the others at $30/hr, which is a nice perk for those who like to volunteer.
The Tier List
Giving Impact Visualised
If your goal is to give the most money as an individual, here is a neat chart showing how far your dollars go depending on who your employer is. The x-axis is the dollar amount you give personally, y-axis is dollars received by your chosen charities (inclusive of the employer match and your personal giving).
Salary Adjusted Giving?
All the previous sections handwave around the fact that these companies do not pay equal salaries, which is obviously a contributing factor to how much you are able to personally donate. In this section I will compare how much a Senior Engineer is able to give, supposing they are donating their entier salary if they are already financially independent.
For simplistic comparison, all amounts here are based on Seattle total compansation (TC) from levels.fyi for Microsoft Senior (L63) or equivalent levels (scoping higher when there is overlap), recorded on 18th July 2025.
| Company (level) | Salary | Employer Giving Match | Total Giving |
|---|---|---|---|
| Netflix (L5) | 538k | 20k | 558k |
| Meta (E5) | 431k | 0 | 431k |
| Amazon (SDE III) | 387k | 0 | 387k |
| Alphabet (L5) | 368k | 10k | 378k |
| Apple (ICT4) | 347k | 10k | 357k |
| Microsoft (63) | 231k | 15k | 246k |
| Tesla | 202k | 0 | 202k |
We can see here that Netflix takes the absolute cake all round, both in terms of compensation and their employee giving match.
Conclusion
If your main goal is to be able to give a small amount of your salary (<10k) in giving and have it matched, you can't go wrong with Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, NVIDIA or Netflix, with Netflix being the absolute winner in this area.
If your goal is to donate your entire salary to charity, Netflix is still the absolute winner in this area, with Meta being the runner-up who, although they don't provide an employee match program, they do provide higher TC than the rest.
Appendix: Effective Giving
Some readers may be sceptical on what effective giving actually looks like, and why you would want to give your hard-earned money away. I would highly recommend checking out both The Life You Can Save (book) and it's corresponding charity The Life You Can Save. Another terrific resource is GiveWell, who themselves are a charity dedicated to doing deep analysis on which donations can make your dollar go the furthest in doing the most good.
Putting it a little more concretely, for approx 3k-8k USD you can statistically stop someone from dying (i.e. if you do some measure that prevents 1000 people from possibly catching Malaria, and 1 of them would have died statistically, you have saved a life with your donation). I believe that as affluent individuals in tech we have a moral and spiritual duty to help those in poverty, in ways that powerfully impact both the giver and the receiver.
