A filling machine (1) is provided with: a rotating conveyor (4); at least one filling unit (10), carried by the rotating conveyor (4) and designed to engage at least one container (2) to carry out filling thereof with a pourable product (19); and a level sensing device (20), operatively coupled to the filling unit (10) to provide information related to a filling level of the product (19) in the container (2). The sensing device (20) includes a laser unit (23), to provide a contactless sensing of the position of a surface (19a) of the product (19) in the container, in order to provide a measure of the filling level.