AI Engineer salary: $229K median
From 250 open roles that publish a yearly US-dollar range. Advertised ranges, not verified pay.
$229Kmedian advertised salary
$190K – $275Kmiddle half of roles
$233Kaverage advertised salary
250roles counted
AI Engineer salary by level
Lead roles advertise a median of $268K, 27% more than senior roles ($210K). The level comes from the job title; titles without a level word are counted separately.
| Level | Median salary | Middle half | Roles |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senior | $210K | $190K–$225K | 49 |
| Lead and above | $268K | $232K–$296K | 65 |
| No level in title | $225K | $178K–$273K | 135 |
AI Engineer salary by location
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| 🇺🇸New York | $264K | 47 |
| 🇺🇸San Francisco Bay Area | $247K | 119 |
| 🇺🇸California | $244K | 133 |
| 🇺🇸United States | $236K | 236 |
Top-paying companies
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| Roblox | $346K | 3 |
| Anthropic | $300K | 7 |
| Figure | $300K | 7 |
| Scale AI | $284K | 10 |
| Waymo | $280K | 3 |
| Qualified Health Pbc | $280K | 3 |
| OpenAI | $264K | 20 |
| Horizon3ai | $259K | 3 |
| Agility Robotics | $258K | 4 |
| Baseten | $240K | 3 |
| ClickUp | $225K | 4 |
| Cresta | $225K | 7 |
| Databricks | $216K | 5 |
| CoreWeave | $212K | 3 |
| Vanta | $212K | 3 |
| Cognition | $202K | 3 |
| EvolutionIQ | $202K | 3 |
| AssemblyAI | $200K | 3 |
| Clera | $185K | 6 |
| Samsara | $184K | 3 |
| Similarweb | $142K | 3 |
| Accenture Federal Services | $141K | 9 |
Highest-paying open AI Engineer roles
All AI engineer jobs- Senior Director of Engineering, Generative AIRoblox · 🇺🇸San Mateo, CA, United States$526K - $574KLeadMachine LearningLLMAI
- Director of Engineer, AI Developer ExperienceAttentive · 🇺🇸New York, NY (Hybrid)$286K - $428KLeadAI
- Engineering Director, AI EngineeringHex · 🇺🇸San Francisco$300K - $425KLeadPythonTypeScriptReact
- Senior Staff Machine Learning Engineer, GenAI PlatformReddit · 🇺🇸Remote - United States$292K - $410KRemoteLeadGoPythonTerraform
- Manager, Applied AI Engineering (Megas)Anthropic · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA$320K - $405KPythonTypeScriptLLM
- Staff Software Engineer, GTM AI EngineeringAnthropic · 🇺🇸Remote-Friendly (Travel-Required) | San Francisco, CA | S…$320K - $405KRemoteLeadPythonTypeScriptSQL
- Applied AI Software Engineer, GTM Growth EngineeringOpenAI · 🇺🇸San Francisco$266K - $405KPythonLLM
- Member of Technical Staff (Applied AI Engineer, Agent Capabilities)Perplexity · 🇺🇸San Francisco$220K - $405KRustPythonTypeScript
- Member of Technical Staff (AI Software Engineer, Agent Engine)Perplexity · 🇺🇸San Francisco$250K - $405KRustGoPython
- Helix AI Engineer, AndroidFigure · 🇺🇸San Jose, CA$200K - $400KReactKotlinAndroid
- Helix AI Engineer, BackendFigure · 🇺🇸San Jose, CA$200K - $400KGoPythonReact
- AI Engineer (Mid-Level)Clera · 🇺🇸San Francisco$180K - $400KPythonTypeScriptReact
- Agent EngineerMoment · 🇺🇸New York, NY$250K - $400KGoPythonTypeScript
- Applied AI Engineer, Codex Core AgentOpenAI · 🇺🇸San Francisco$230K - $385KPythonMachine LearningLLM
- Principal AI Engineer, AI Agent DevelopmentOKX · 🇺🇸San Jose, California, United States$250K - $376KLeadMachine LearningLLMAI
- Principal AI Engineer, Chatbot DevelopmentOKX · 🇺🇸San Jose, California, United States$250K - $376KLeadMachine LearningLLMAI
- Senior Staff AI Software Engineer, PerceptionAgility Robotics · 🇺🇸Hybrid- Any Office (Fremont, CA, Salem, OR, or Pittsburgh…$238K - $372KRemoteLeadMachine LearningAI
- Principal AI Engineer - Personalization and RecommendationRula · 🇺🇸Remote - United States$282K - $371KRemoteLeadGoPythonTypeScript
- Applied AI Engineer, Autonomous DefenseHorizon3ai · 🇺🇸US, Remote$313K - $369KRemotePythonMachine LearningLLM
- Senior Staff Machine Learning Engineer, LLM/VLM Model Architecture & OptimizationWaymo · 🇺🇸Mountain View, CA, USA; San Francisco, CA, USA;$298K - $368KLeadMachine LearningLLMPyTorch
Questions about AI Engineer pay
- What is the average AI Engineer salary?
- $233K a year on average and $229K at the median, across 250 open AI Engineer postings at tech companies that state pay (November 2026). The median is the better guide: a few very high offers pull the average up.
- What is the typical range?
- The middle half of the postings offer $190K to $275K a year. A quarter offer less and a quarter offer more.
- Which companies advertise the highest AI Engineer pay?
- Roblox ($346K), Figure ($300K), Anthropic ($300K), by the median of their open postings that state pay (three postings or more).
- Where do these figures come from?
- From the pay ranges employers print in their own job postings, read from their careers pages every hour. The midpoint of each range is counted. These are advertised ranges for open roles, mostly in the United States and in US dollars, not what people are actually paid.
Writing about this? A sentence you can quote
The median advertised salary for AI Engineer roles at tech companies is $229K a year, and the middle half of postings offer $190K to $275K. Counted from 250 open job postings that state pay, November 2026. Source: Hiring Right Now, https://jobseveryhour.com/salaries/ai-engineer/
Free to use with the link.