OpenAI API salary: $266K median
The median advertised OpenAI API salary is $266K a year, and the middle half of postings offer $225K to $339K: counted from 137 open roles that publish a yearly US-dollar range: about $128 an hour or $22,208 a month. A tenth of the postings offer $396K or more. Advertised ranges, not verified pay.
Check an offer against these figuresAll OpenAI API jobs
$266Kmedian advertised salary
$225K – $339Kmiddle half of roles
$284Kaverage advertised salary
137roles counted
OpenAI API salary by level
Lead roles advertise a median of $318K, 40% more than senior roles ($227K). The level comes from the job title; titles without a level word are counted separately.
| Level | Median salary | Middle half | Roles |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senior | $227K | $202K–$250K | 20 |
| Lead and above | $318K | $265K–$370K | 25 |
| No level in the title | $273K | $225K–$356K | 91 |
OpenAI API salary by location
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| 🇺🇸San Francisco Bay Area | $308K | 87 |
| 🇺🇸California | $308K | 89 |
| 🇺🇸United States | $266K | 128 |
| 🇺🇸New York, NY | $246K | 24 |
Skills that pay more for OpenAI API roles
| Skill | Median with it | Above the median | Postings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Go | $326K | +$60K | 13 |
| Kubernetes | $292K | +$25K | 16 |
| Machine Learning | $285K | +$18K | 22 |
| Incident response | $273K | +$6K | 13 |
Top-paying companies
Highest-paying open OpenAI API roles
All OpenAI API jobs- Researcher, TrainingOpenAI · 🇺🇸San Francisco$300K - $600KLLMDeep learningOpenAI API
- Product Manager, Financial ServicesOpenAI · 🇺🇸San Francisco$401K - $530KOpenAI APIData qualityM&A
- Research Lead - Pre-training SafetyFar.ai · Berkeley Office$290K - $450KRemoteLead and above.NETMachine LearningLLM evaluation
- Research LeadFar.ai · Berkeley Office$290K - $450KLead and above.NETLLM evaluationOpenAI API
- Software Architect, AI Systems and PlatformOkta · 🇺🇸San Francisco, California$274K - $376KPythonTypeScriptReact
- Senior/Staff Machine Learning Research Engineer, General Agents, Enterprise GenAIScale AI · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA; New York, NY$290K - $363KLead and abovePythonMachine LearningLLM
- Senior Staff Frontier Agents EngineerScale AI · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA; New York, NY$288K - $360KLead and abovePythonDockerTerraform
- Staff Engineer, AILitellm · 🇺🇸San Francisco$250K - $350KLead and aboveRustPythonPostgreSQL
- Principal Software Engineer, Applied AIOkta · 🇺🇸San Francisco, California$238K - $326KLead and abovePythonPostgreSQLMachine Learning
- Director, GTM AI EngineeringSamsara · 🇺🇸Remote - US$182K - $325KRemoteLead and abovePythonTypeScriptMachine Learning
- Sr. Staff Software Engineer, Agentic ApplicationsDatabricks · 🇺🇸Mountain View, California$234K - $322KLead and aboveGoPythonTypeScript
- Lead AI Engineer – Enterprise, Data & AIZoox · 🇺🇸Foster City, CA$230K - $300KLead and abovePythonLLMMongoDB
- Senior Applied AI EngineerCodeRabbit · 🇺🇸San Francisco$200K - $300KHybridSeniorPythonTypeScriptLLM
- Forward Deployed Software EngineerGovwell · 🇺🇸New York, NY$200K - $300KHybridTypeScriptReactNode.js
- Senior Software Engineer, PaymentsGovwell · 🇺🇸New York, NY$200K - $300KSeniorTypeScriptReactNode.js
- Senior Applied AI/ML Scientist - CompassFaire · 🇺🇸New York City, NY; San Francisco, CA$211K - $290KSeniorPythonMachine LearningLLM
- Senior Principal AI Solutions EngineerSambaNova · 🇺🇸San Jose, California, United States$234K - $286KLead and abovePythonTypeScriptReact
- Senior Manager, AI EnablementJustworks · 🇺🇸New York, New York$188K - $269KSeniorPythonLLMCI/CD
- Staff Data EngineerMinerva · 🇺🇸New York City$237K - $265KLead and abovePythonSQLPostgreSQL
- Software Engineer, Agent HarnessCartesia · 🇺🇸*HQ - San Francisco, CA$180K - $250KLLMDatabricksAI agents
Questions about OpenAI API pay
- What is the average OpenAI API salary?
- $284K a year on average and $266K at the median, across 137 open OpenAI API 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 $225K to $339K a year. A quarter offer less and a quarter offer more.
- Which companies advertise the highest OpenAI API pay?
- OpenAI ($315K), Scale AI ($311K), Far.ai ($288K), by the median of their open postings that state pay (three postings or more).
- Is an openai api a high-paying job?
- The median OpenAI API posting advertises $266K a year, more than the median of all 55,899 job postings with pay on Jobs Every Hour ($174K). That is 53% above the middle of the market.
- How much can you earn as an openai api?
- A tenth of the postings offer $396K a year or more; the highest open OpenAI API role advertises up to $600K. Pay rises with level: see the table by level.
- What is the OpenAI API salary per hour and per month?
- The median of $266K a year is about $128 an hour (2,080 working hours) and $22,208 a month before tax. The middle half of postings: $108 to $163 an hour.
- Which skills pay more for OpenAI API roles?
- Postings that ask for Go (+$60K, 13 postings), Kubernetes (+$25K, 16 postings), Machine Learning (+$18K, 22 postings) advertise more than the $266K median of all OpenAI API 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 OpenAI API roles at companies is $266K a year, and the middle half of postings offer $225K to $339K. Counted from 137 open job postings that state pay, November 2026. Source: Jobs Every Hour, https://jobseveryhour.com/salaries/openai-api/
Free to use with the link.