TechPays Acquired by Levels.fyi: A New Era for Tech Salary Transparency in Europe
European tech salary platform TechPays acquired by Levels.fyi, advancing pay transparency
TechPays, Europe's leading tech salary data platform, has been acquired by global compensation benchmarking site Levels.fyi. The deal fills Levels.fyi's European data gap and represents a critical step in its globalization strategy. With the EU Pay Transparency Directive set to take effect by 2026, the strategic value of salary data platforms is rising, and consolidation in the tech compensation tools space is accelerating.
Overview
TechPays, Europe's leading tech industry salary data platform, recently announced its acquisition by Levels.fyi, the globally renowned compensation benchmarking site. This deal means that Europe's most important salary transparency tool for tech professionals will now benefit from stronger resources and enter a new phase of sustained development.
TechPays founder and well-known tech blogger Gergely Orosz (author of The Pragmatic Engineer) stated in the announcement that this merger ensures "Europe's leading tech compensation website gets the attention and maintenance it deserves." He also thanked co-founder Zsombor for years of collaborative building.
About Gergely Orosz: Gergely Orosz is a Hungarian-born software engineer who previously worked at major tech companies including Uber and Microsoft before transitioning into independent tech blogging. His publication, The Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter, is one of the world's largest paid tech industry newsletters by subscriber count, focusing on software engineer career development, salary negotiation, and industry trends. With hundreds of thousands of subscribers and immense influence in the US and European tech communities, it was precisely this audience base that enabled TechPays to rapidly accumulate authentic salary data from European tech professionals and build powerful network effects.
The Long-Standing Pain Point of Salary Transparency in Europe
A Pronounced Information Asymmetry
Salary transparency has always been a core issue in the tech industry, and the problem is particularly acute in Europe. Compared to the US, European tech companies are far more conservative about disclosing compensation information, leaving both job seekers and current employees at a significant information disadvantage during salary negotiations.
The US market already has mature platforms like Glassdoor and Levels.fyi for reference, but Europe has long lacked a salary data tool focused specifically on the local tech industry. TechPays filled this gap, providing developers, engineers, and technical managers across Europe with reliable compensation benchmarks. Notably, European countries differ significantly in language, currency, tax systems, and labor laws, making the cost of accumulating localized salary data far higher than in the US as a single market—this is precisely what allowed TechPays to build its competitive moat.
TechPays' Unique Value
TechPays focused specifically on the European market, covering salary data from major tech hubs including the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. The platform provided not only base salary information but also complete total compensation data including stock options and annual bonuses, helping professionals gain a comprehensive understanding of actual market rates.
Levels.fyi's Global Expansion Strategy
From the US Market to the World
Levels.fyi initially built its reputation on salary data from major US tech companies (FAANG and others), quickly becoming one of the most trusted compensation reference platforms globally through its structured level comparisons and authentic user-submitted data.
FAANG and Level Systems: FAANG is an acronym for Facebook (now Meta), Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google—the five elite tech companies, broadly representing high-paying Silicon Valley giants. Levels.fyi's core innovation was introducing a structured "level comparison" system—different companies have different titles for engineers at the same capability tier (e.g., Google's L5 corresponds to Meta's E6). By horizontally aligning these levels, Levels.fyi made cross-company salary comparisons possible, rather than relying on simple job title matching. This methodology later became an industry standard and is the platform's core competitive advantage over traditional platforms like Glassdoor.
Acquiring TechPays is a critical step in Levels.fyi's globalization strategy. Salary data platforms are a textbook case of data network effects: the more data users submit, the higher the platform's reference value for other users, which in turn attracts more submissions, creating a virtuous cycle. By integrating TechPays' accumulated European data assets and user base, Levels.fyi not only provides global users with a more complete cross-regional compensation comparison perspective but also directly bypasses the lengthy cold-start phase of building European user trust from scratch. This "acquire rather than build" strategy is becoming increasingly common in data-driven vertical platform businesses.
Practical Impact on Existing Users
For existing TechPays users, this acquisition sends positive signals:
- Stronger technical support: Levels.fyi has a mature product team capable of continuously improving user experience and data quality
- Richer data dimensions: Integrating data from both platforms will provide more comprehensive compensation profiles and support cross-country comparisons
- Long-term operational assurance: As an independent project, TechPays' sustained maintenance carried uncertainty; joining Levels.fyi mitigates this risk
Industry Trends: Accelerating Salary Transparency
EU Regulation Driving Change
The EU has passed the Pay Transparency Directive, requiring member states to transpose it into national law by 2026. This means salary transparency will shift from a voluntary corporate choice to a legal obligation, further elevating the strategic value of related data platforms.
Directive Details: The EU Pay Transparency Directive (Directive 2023/970/EU) officially took effect in June 2023 and represents a major milestone in European labor legislation. The directive requires employers to proactively disclose salary ranges during recruitment, prohibits asking candidates about their salary history, and mandates that employees have the right to know the average salary of colleagues in equivalent positions. Companies with more than 100 employees must also publish regular pay gap reports. This policy will fundamentally change the information structure of the European labor market, upgrading salary data platforms like TechPays from "useful tools" to "infrastructure" for corporate compliance and worker advocacy.
The Consolidation Trend in Tech Salary Tools
This acquisition also reflects a broader consolidation trend in the tech salary data space. As the market matures, smaller independently operated platforms are gradually being absorbed by larger players, forming data networks with greater scale effects. For users, consolidation typically brings better product experiences and more accurate data coverage. From a macro perspective, this trend aligns with the broader evolution of the HR Tech sector—data assets are being repriced, and platforms with high-quality, hard-to-replicate vertical datasets are becoming important acquisition targets for larger players pursuing global expansion.
Conclusion
TechPays joining Levels.fyi marks a new chapter for tech salary transparency in Europe. Driven by both regulatory momentum and market demand, salary data platforms are becoming foundational infrastructure for tech professionals' career decisions. This acquisition is not merely a product merger—it's a microcosm of the global tech talent market moving toward greater openness and transparency.
Key Takeaways
- Europe's leading tech salary platform TechPays has been acquired by globally renowned compensation site Levels.fyi
- Salary transparency in Europe's tech industry has long lagged behind the US; TechPays filled this market gap
- The acquisition is a major step in Levels.fyi's globalization strategy, integrating European compensation data resources
- The EU Pay Transparency Directive (Directive 2023/970/EU) will take effect by 2026, driving industry transformation
- The tech salary data space is consolidating, promising better product experiences for users
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