Search and Recommendations Engineer salary: $232K median
The median advertised Search and Recommendations Engineer salary is $232K a year, and the middle half of postings offer $193K to $280K: counted from 90 open roles that publish a yearly US-dollar range: about $112 an hour or $19,354 a month. A tenth of the postings offer $360K or more. Advertised ranges, not verified pay.
Check an offer against these figuresAll search and recommendations engineer jobs
$232Kmedian advertised salary
$193K – $280Kmiddle half of roles
$255Kaverage advertised salary
90roles counted
Search and Recommendations Engineer salary by level
Lead roles advertise a median of $262K, 36% more than senior roles ($193K). The level comes from the job title; titles without a level word are counted separately.
| Level | Median salary | Middle half | Roles |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senior | $193K | $190K–$232K | 31 |
| Lead and above | $262K | $232K–$290K | 39 |
| No level in the title | $249K | $200K–$396K | 20 |
Search and Recommendations Engineer salary by location
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| 🇺🇸San Francisco Bay Area | $265K | 37 |
| 🇺🇸California | $260K | 36 |
| 🇺🇸United States | $234K | 83 |
Skills that pay more for Search and Recommendations Engineer roles
| Skill | Median with it | Above the median | Postings |
|---|---|---|---|
| SQL | $279K | +$47K | 11 |
| Recommender systems | $255K | +$23K | 25 |
| AI | $255K | +$23K | 32 |
| Machine Learning | $252K | +$19K | 37 |
| Go | $251K | +$19K | 14 |
Top-paying companies
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| OpenAI | $440K | 7 |
| Roblox | $316K | 4 |
| $276K | 5 | |
| Faire | $250K | 3 |
| NewsBreak | $235K | 4 |
| Elastic | $232K | 17 |
| Captivation Software | $200K | 3 |
| Constructor | $100K | 3 |
Highest-paying open Search and Recommendations Engineer roles
All search and recommendations engineer jobs- Research Scientist / Research Engineer - Foundations, SearchOpenAI · 🇺🇸San Francisco$380K - $850KMachine LearningLLMVector databases
- Research Scientist / Research Engineer - Web Understanding and Structured Retrieval, SearchOpenAI · 🇺🇸San Francisco$380K - $850KMachine Learning
- Staff+ Software Engineer, Memory & SearchAnthropic · 🇺🇸New York City, NY; New York City, NY | Seattle, WA; Remot…$405K - $485KRemoteLead and abovePythonTypeScriptLLM
- Principal Engineer, Indexing & Retrieval InfrastructurePinterest · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA, US; Palo Alto, CA, US; Seattle, WA,US$285K - $450KLead and above
- Staff Software Engineer, SearchAnthropic · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA | New York City, NY$320K - $405KLead and aboveGoPythonJava
- Member of Technical Staff (ML Engineer, Recommendations & User Modeling)Perplexity · 🇺🇸San Francisco$220K - $405KLLMRecommender systems
- Principal Product Manager II, AI/Vectors - ElasticsearchElastic · 🇺🇸United States$200K - $379KLead and aboveAIElasticsearchVector databases
- Principal Data Scientist, Economy RecommendationsRoblox · 🇺🇸San Mateo, CA, United States$323K - $374KLead and abovePythonSQLAirflow
- Senior Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Feed RelevanceReddit · 🇺🇸Remote - United States$266K - $372KRemoteLead and aboveMachine LearningAIGenerative AI
- Principal AI Engineer - Personalization and RecommendationRula · 🇺🇸Remote - United States$282K - $371KRemoteLead and aboveGoPythonTypeScript
- Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Search & IndexWayve · 🇺🇸Sunnyvale, California USA$312K - $351KHybridSeniorPythonMachine LearningAI
- Principal/Senior Machine Learning Scientist - Search and DiscoveryRoblox · 🇺🇸San Mateo, CA, United States$279K - $345KLead and aboveMachine LearningLLMAI
- Senior Staff Applied AI Engineer - Context RetrievalDatabricks · 🇺🇸Mountain View, California; San Francisco, California$229K - $343KLead and aboveSQLLLMSpark
- Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Discovery RecommendationsEpic Games · BLANK,BLANK,Multiple Locations$190K - $341KSeniorPythonMachine LearningPyTorch
- Staff Software Engineer, Cortex AI Search InfrastructureSnowflake · 🇺🇸US-CA-Menlo Park$236K - $339KHybridLead and aboveGoPythonJava
- Staff/Principal Engineer, Search & RetrievalLila Sciences · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA USA$224K - $336KLead and aboveGoPythonTerraform
- Sr. Machine Learning Engineer, Recommendation SystemsxAI · 🇺🇸Palo Alto, CA$180K - $330KSeniorMachine LearningPyTorchKafka
- Sr. Machine Learning Engineer, Search RankingxAI · 🇺🇸Palo Alto, CA$180K - $330KSeniorRustGoPython
- Senior Staff Data Scientist, Consumer RelevanceReddit · 🇺🇸Remote - United States$232K - $326KRemoteLead and abovePythonSQLRecommender systems
- Senior Principal Machine Learning Engineer - RecommendationsSoundCloud · 🇺🇸New York$280K - $325KLead and aboveMachine LearningLLMPyTorch
Questions about Search and Recommendations Engineer pay
- What is the average Search and Recommendations Engineer salary?
- $255K a year on average and $232K at the median, across 90 open Search and Recommendations 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 $193K to $280K a year. A quarter offer less and a quarter offer more.
- Which companies advertise the highest Search and Recommendations Engineer pay?
- OpenAI ($440K), Roblox ($316K), Reddit ($276K), by the median of their open postings that state pay (three postings or more).
- Is a search and recommendations engineer a high-paying job?
- The median Search and Recommendations Engineer posting advertises $232K a year, more than the median of all 55,899 job postings with pay on Jobs Every Hour ($174K). That is 33% above the middle of the market.
- How much can you earn as a search and recommendations engineer?
- A tenth of the postings offer $360K a year or more; the highest open Search and Recommendations Engineer role advertises up to $850K. Pay rises with level: see the table by level.
- What is the Search and Recommendations Engineer salary per hour and per month?
- The median of $232K a year is about $112 an hour (2,080 working hours) and $19,354 a month before tax. The middle half of postings: $93 to $135 an hour.
- Which skills pay more for Search and Recommendations Engineer roles?
- Postings that ask for SQL (+$47K, 11 postings), Recommender systems (+$23K, 25 postings), AI (+$23K, 32 postings) advertise more than the $232K median of all Search and Recommendations 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 Search and Recommendations Engineer roles at companies is $232K a year, and the middle half of postings offer $193K to $280K. Counted from 90 open job postings that state pay, November 2026. Source: Jobs Every Hour, https://jobseveryhour.com/salaries/search-engineer/
Free to use with the link.