Data Engineering at Illumina

Roles, Comp & Culture

An L6 staff data engineer at Illumina sits around $194K total comp from 39 verified salary datapoints. The ladder runs from about $110K at mid up to $194K. Illumina pays data engineers in line with other Healthcare companies. Reviews put them at 3.4 on Glassdoor, toward the bottom of the pack. Illumina employees are stressed and employee happiness has held flat over the past year. Layoff risk scores low for the next 30 days. 1 data engineering role is open right now.

Last updated: Proudly published by: Jeff Wahl

Illumina data engineer compensation

Each level's figure is the median of individual Illumina offers at that level, so it reflects a typical outcome rather than an average pulled up by a few large packages. Total comp counts base salary plus equity and bonus annualized over the vest, and the range shown is the middle half of offers, with the top and bottom quarters trimmed off.

L4Mid$110Kmedian
Base$101KRange$102K–$144KReports19 · 2-5 yrsIllumina loop
L5Senior$182Kmedian
Base$135KRange$141K–$196KReports11 · 5-10 yrsIllumina loop
L6Staff$194Kmedian
Base$144KRange$156K–$215KReports11 · 8-15 yrsIllumina loop
Updated 39 verified salary reports + 2 salaries adjusted to total comp

Illumina employee sentiment, tracked weekly

Employee happiness for data engineers over the past year, so you can see which direction it is moving, not just where it sits today.

Stressedtrending down over the past year
20252026
Updated Illumina employee happiness

Recent Illumina events

Layoffs, leadership changes, and other major moves at the company, with dates.

  1. Exec departureApr 2026Leadership change
  2. LayoffFeb 2026~3 roles cut
  3. Exec departureJan 2026Leadership change
  4. LayoffDec 2025~7 roles cut
  5. Exec departureMay 2025Leadership change
  6. Exec departureMar 2025Leadership change
  7. LayoffJan 2025Layoff
Updated 7 Illumina events, 3 with headcount

Notable company events we track, with dates.

Illumina data engineering tech stack

The languages, storage, and processing tools Illumina data engineers actually work with, grouped by what they do. Tailor your system-design answers to this stack.

Languages
Java
Python
Scala
Updated from current job listings

Illumina data engineer job openings

A live read on what they are hiring: open roles, recent postings, where, and at what level.

Illumina
Open roles
Illumina data engineer · live from career pages
1
open roles
Levels hiring
L51
Updated 1 open listing across 1 city

Preparing for the Illumina loop

The round-by-round process, example questions, and prep plan are on the interview guide.

Compare Illumina with other data engineering employers

How the role, pay, and loop stack up against peer companies.

02 / Why practice

Prepare at Illumina interview difficulty

  1. 01

    Reading a solution is not the same as writing one

    Every engineer who has frozen on a query they had read a dozen times knows the gap. The only preparation that closes it is producing the answer yourself, under time, before the interview does it for you

  2. 02

    76% of hiring managers reject on the coding task, not the resume

    From HackerRank's 2024 Developer Skills Report. Candidates who look strong on paper still fail the live screen if they haven't done timed, executable practice

  3. 03

    5 problem shapes cover 80% of data engineer loops

    Dedup, sessionization, top-N-per-group, slowly-changing dimensions, partition tricks. Writing the shapes by hand turns the unfamiliar into pattern recognition

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