Inference Engineer salary: $258K median
The median advertised Inference Engineer salary is $258K a year, and the middle half of postings offer $220K to $300K: counted from 111 open roles that publish a yearly US-dollar range: about $124 an hour or $21,458 a month. A tenth of the postings offer $350K or more. Advertised ranges, not verified pay.
Check an offer against these figuresAll inference engineer jobs
$258Kmedian advertised salary
$220K – $300Kmiddle half of roles
$265Kaverage advertised salary
111roles counted
Inference Engineer salary by level
Lead roles advertise a median of $262K, 22% more than senior roles ($216K). The level comes from the job title; titles without a level word are counted separately.
| Level | Median salary | Middle half | Roles |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senior | $216K | $186K–$245K | 20 |
| Lead and above | $262K | $232K–$302K | 39 |
| No level in the title | $270K | $228K–$300K | 52 |
Inference Engineer salary by location
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| 🇺🇸California | $260K | 97 |
| 🇺🇸San Francisco Bay Area | $258K | 97 |
| 🇺🇸United States | $256K | 108 |
| 🇺🇸Seattle, WA | $240K | 23 |
Skills that pay more for Inference Engineer roles
| Skill | Median with it | Above the median | Postings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Load balancing | $315K | +$58K | 13 |
| LLM | $268K | +$10K | 80 |
| AWS | $262K | +$5K | 11 |
| Rust | $260K | +$2K | 25 |
| GPU programming | $260K | +$2K | 15 |
Top-paying companies
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | $402K | 8 |
| Inworld AI | $315K | 3 |
| Radixark | $300K | 5 |
| Baseten | $270K | 7 |
| Cohere | $261K | 4 |
| Modal | $260K | 3 |
| Together AI | $248K | 6 |
| DoorDash USA | $240K | 5 |
| Crusoe | $238K | 5 |
| D Matrix | $230K | 4 |
| Nebius | $228K | 4 |
| Sciforium | $220K | 3 |
| Databricks | $212K | 3 |
| CoreWeave | $207K | 8 |
| xAI | $205K | 3 |
Highest-paying open Inference Engineer roles
All inference engineer jobs- Performance Engineer, Inference SystemsAnthropic · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA | New York City, NY | Seattle, WA$350K - $850KPythonSQLLLM
- Engineering Manager, Inference InfrastructureAnthropic · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA | New York City, NY | Seattle, WA$405K - $625KMachine LearningLLMKubernetes
- Member of Technical Staff, Inference & RL SystemsMagic.dev · 🇺🇸San Francisco$275K - $550K
- Member of Technical Staff (AI Inference Engineer)Perplexity · 🇺🇸San Francisco$220K - $485KRustPythonLLM
- Research Engineer, Training & InferenceHarmonic · 🇺🇸Palo Alto$200K - $450KPythonC++LLM
- Staff / Senior Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Inference - USAInworld AI · 🇺🇸Mountain View, California, USA$270K - $430KHybridLead and aboveRustPythonC++
- Software Engineer, Inference SystemsRiver AI Inc. · 🇺🇸Palo Alto, CA$200K - $420KRustPythonC++
- Forward Deployed Engineer, InferenceCohere · 🇺🇸United States$240K - $415KGoPythonC++
- Product Manager, Inference PlatformBaseten · 🇺🇸San Francisco$200K - $400KHybridMachine LearningLLMPyTorch
- Product Manager, Inference ExperienceBaseten · 🇺🇸San Francisco$200K - $400KHybridMachine LearningLLMPyTorch
- Member of Technical Staff — Inference-TPURadixark · 🇺🇸Palo Alto$200K - $400KPythonLLM
- Member of Technical Staff — Inference-Core EngineRadixark · 🇺🇸Palo Alto$200K - $400KRustPythonC++
- Member of Technical Staff, InferenceInferact · 🇺🇸San Francisco$200K - $400KPythonLLMPyTorch
- Member of Technical Staff, InferenceMirendil · 🇺🇸San Francisco$300K - $400KLLMvLLMTensorRT
- Inference Infrastructure Engineer, ServingElorian Ai Inc · 🇺🇸Palo Alto$200K - $400KHybridPythonC++LLM
- Software Engineer, InferenceSierra · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA$230K - $390KLLMMLOpsvLLM
- Member of Technical Staff - ML Systems & InferenceGimlet · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA$150K - $390KPythonC++LLM
- Software Engineer, Developer Productivity - Inference RuntimeOpenAI · 🇺🇸San Francisco$230K - $385KHybridPythonC++CI/CD
- Manager II, Engineering, Serving InfrastructurePinterest · 🇺🇸Palo Alto, CA, US; San Francisco, CA, US$208K - $365KGoPythonJava
- Machine Learning Engineer, Inference & Serving (Speech LLM) - San FranciscoPlaud · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA$195K - $365KHybridMachine LearningLLMKubernetes
Questions about Inference Engineer pay
- What is the average Inference Engineer salary?
- $265K a year on average and $258K at the median, across 111 open Inference Engineer postings at 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 $220K to $300K a year. A quarter offer less and a quarter offer more.
- Which companies advertise the highest Inference Engineer pay?
- Anthropic ($402K), Inworld AI ($315K), Radixark ($300K), by the median of their open postings that state pay (three postings or more).
- Is an inference engineer a high-paying job?
- The median Inference Engineer posting advertises $258K a year, more than the median of all 55,899 job postings with pay on Jobs Every Hour ($174K). That is 48% above the middle of the market.
- How much can you earn as an inference engineer?
- A tenth of the postings offer $350K a year or more; the highest open Inference Engineer role advertises up to $850K. Pay rises with level: see the table by level.
- What is the Inference Engineer salary per hour and per month?
- The median of $258K a year is about $124 an hour (2,080 working hours) and $21,458 a month before tax. The middle half of postings: $106 to $144 an hour.
- Which skills pay more for Inference Engineer roles?
- Postings that ask for Load balancing (+$58K, 13 postings), LLM (+$10K, 80 postings), AWS (+$5K, 11 postings) advertise more than the $258K median of all Inference Engineer postings with pay.
- 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 Inference Engineer roles at companies is $258K a year, and the middle half of postings offer $220K to $300K. Counted from 111 open job postings that state pay, November 2026. Source: Jobs Every Hour, https://jobseveryhour.com/salaries/inference-engineer/
Free to use with the link.