NLP and Speech Engineer salary: $88K median
The median advertised NLP and Speech Engineer salary is $88K a year, and the middle half of postings offer $70K to $190K: counted from 94 open roles that publish a yearly US-dollar range: about $42 an hour or $7,292 a month. A tenth of the postings offer $277K or more. Advertised ranges, not verified pay.
Check an offer against these figuresAll NLP and speech engineer jobs
$88Kmedian advertised salary
$70K – $190Kmiddle half of roles
$133Kaverage advertised salary
94roles counted
Skills that pay more for NLP and Speech Engineer roles
| Skill | Median with it | Above the median | Postings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Machine Learning | $280K | +$192K | 11 |
| Speech AI | $276K | +$188K | 11 |
| PyTorch | $248K | +$160K | 9 |
| AI | $208K | +$120K | 19 |
| Python | $205K | +$118K | 13 |
Top-paying companies
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| Decagon | $300K | 3 |
| Deepgram | $260K | 4 |
| Fira Health | $115K | 10 |
| Hirehangar | $106K | 4 |
| H2 Health | $79K | 4 |
| AnthroMed Education (School Services) | $68K | 43 |
Highest-paying open NLP and Speech Engineer roles
All NLP and speech engineer jobs- Principal Research & Engineering, Realtime Voice AIInflection AI · 🇺🇸Palo Alto, California, United States$400K - $550KLead and aboveLLM
- Member of Technical Staff, Multimodal SpeechHark · 🇺🇸San Jose$180K - $450KMachine Learning
- Member of Technical Staff, Applied AI – SpeechSalient · Remote$300K - $450KRemoteMachine LearningAI
- Staff Software Engineer, Voice AgentDecagon · 🇺🇸San Francisco$200K - $400KHybridLead and aboveLLMAI agentsSpeech AI
- Senior Research Engineer, Audio and SpeechDecagon · 🇺🇸San Francisco$200K - $400KSeniorPythonMachine LearningPyTorch
- Machine Learning Engineer, Speech LLM Training - San FranciscoPlaud · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA$195K - $365KHybridMachine LearningLLMPyTorch
- Machine Learning Engineer, Inference & Serving (Speech LLM) - San FranciscoPlaud · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA$195K - $365KHybridMachine LearningLLMKubernetes
- Director of Research, Text-to-SpeechDeepgram · 🇺🇸USA - Remote$234K - $361KRemoteLead and aboveLLM evaluationSpeech AI
- Research Staff, Voice AI FoundationsDeepgram · 🇺🇸USA - Remote$149K - $338KRemoteLead and aboveLLMAIDeep learning
- Staff AI Research Engineer, Speech RecognitionDuolingo · 🇺🇸New York, NY; Pittsburgh, PA$221K - $331KLead and aboveMachine LearningLLMAI
- Software Engineer - Voice AI (Inference Runtime)Baseten · 🇺🇸San Francisco$165K - $330KHybridPythonDockerMachine Learning
- Lead Product Manager, Voice AISalient · 🇺🇸SF Headquarters$200K - $320KLead and aboveLLMAI
- Staff/Senior Software Engineer, Voice AI PlatformToast · 🇺🇸Remote, US$151K - $309KRemoteLead and aboveReactJavaKotlin
- Staff Software Engineer, SpeechRadai · 🇺🇸United States - Remote$187K - $265KRemoteLead and abovePythonTypeScriptReact
- Vice President, Speech Language PathologyHirehangar · 🇺🇸Atlanta, GA$200K - $250KLead and above
- NLP Engineer - Clearance RequiredBTI360 Website · 🇺🇸Herndon, VA$126K - $248KPythonGCPAzure
- Senior Software Engineer, Voice AICloaked · 🇺🇸New York, NY$180K - $230KHybridSeniorGoPythonGCP
- Staff Data Scientist | NLPMachinify · 🇺🇸Remote - US$180K - $230KRemoteLead and abovePythonSQLGCP
- Senior Software Engineer, Voice AgentsCommure · 🇺🇸Mountain View, CA$170K - $230KSeniorPythonLLMNLP
- Senior Full Stack AI Engineer (Natural Language Systems)Prompt · Remote$160K - $220KRemoteSeniorPythonPostgreSQLDocker
Questions about NLP and Speech Engineer pay
- What is the average NLP and Speech Engineer salary?
- $133K a year on average and $88K at the median, across 94 open NLP and Speech 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 $70K to $190K a year. A quarter offer less and a quarter offer more.
- Which companies advertise the highest NLP and Speech Engineer pay?
- Decagon ($300K), Deepgram ($260K), Fira Health ($115K), by the median of their open postings that state pay (three postings or more).
- Is a nlp and speech engineer a high-paying job?
- The median NLP and Speech Engineer posting advertises $88K a year, less than the median of all 55,899 job postings with pay on Jobs Every Hour ($174K). That is 50% below the middle of the market.
- How much can you earn as a nlp and speech engineer?
- A tenth of the postings offer $277K a year or more; the highest open NLP and Speech Engineer role advertises up to $550K. Pay rises with level: see the table by level.
- What is the NLP and Speech Engineer salary per hour and per month?
- The median of $88K a year is about $42 an hour (2,080 working hours) and $7,292 a month before tax. The middle half of postings: $33 to $91 an hour.
- Which skills pay more for NLP and Speech Engineer roles?
- Postings that ask for Machine Learning (+$192K, 11 postings), Speech AI (+$188K, 11 postings), PyTorch (+$160K, 9 postings) advertise more than the $88K median of all NLP and Speech 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 NLP and Speech Engineer roles at companies is $88K a year, and the middle half of postings offer $70K to $190K. Counted from 94 open job postings that state pay, November 2026. Source: Jobs Every Hour, https://jobseveryhour.com/salaries/nlp-engineer/
Free to use with the link.



