Side-by-side distribution
AI Engineer
$200,455
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 38.5%
- Live roles
- 5,105
Application Security
$190,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 55.2%
- Live roles
- 317
Highest-paying jobs
Senior/Staff Backend Engineer, Applied AI
Senior/Staff Full Stack Engineer, Applied AI
Senior Software Engineer, Machine Learning (Audio)
Machine Learning Engineer - Fraud Risk
Backend Engineer, AI
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (RL Velocity)
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (Reinforcement Learning)
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (RL Velocity)
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (Reinforcement Learning)
Senior AI Security Engineer II
Highest-paying jobs
Staff+ Application Security Engineer
Staff+ Application Security Engineer - M&A
Staff Engineer - Product Security
Senior Staff Engineer - Product Security
Product & Application Security Engineer
Senior Security Engineer, Product AppSec
Principal Software Engineer II - Product Security
Security Engineer, Application Security
Staff Engineer - Product Security
Principal Security Software Engineer, Application Security
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
OpenAI
|
$239,000 | 37 |
Mindrift
|
$312,000 | 31 |
Handshake
|
$252,500 | 22 |
Databricks
|
$224,163 | 22 |
Motional
|
$200,500 | 21 |
Pinterest
|
$265,928 | 20 |
Reddit
|
$276,000 | 19 |
Applied Intuition
|
$173,500 | 18 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Anduril Industries
|
$204,500 | 8 |
Mozilla
|
$85,751 | 5 |
|
Faire
|
$422,240 | 4 |
|
Veeam Software
|
$315,000 | 4 |
Harvey
|
$275,000 | 3 |
Brex
|
$216,000 | 3 |
Airwallex
|
$205,000 | 3 |
SpaceX
|
$202,500 | 3 |
AI Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Singapore | $250,000 | 4 |
| San Francisco | $230,000 | 465 |
| New York | $220,000 | 351 |
| Seattle | $205,500 | 98 |
| Chicago | $205,000 | 35 |
| Los Angeles | $200,000 | 33 |
| Austin | $197,500 | 45 |
| Bangalore | $194,838 | 3 |
| Sydney | $190,000 | 3 |
| Boston | $185,500 | 88 |
Application Security salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| New York | $237,500 | 27 |
| San Francisco | $232,500 | 47 |
| Chicago | $213,750 | 7 |
| Seattle | $200,000 | 11 |
| Boston | $195,000 | 4 |
| Austin | $187,500 | 5 |
| Toronto | $185,000 | 11 |
| Denver | $177,500 | 5 |
| Los Angeles | $150,000 | 7 |
| London | $131,502 | 3 |
AI Engineer vs Application Security: which pays more?
The median for AI Engineer is $200,455 per year (typically $165,350–$243,750), versus $190,000 for Application Security ($159,735–$235,000). That puts AI Engineer about 6% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so AI Engineer and Application Security are compared on equal terms regardless of the currency each role was originally posted in. Only roles that publish a salary range feed the medians; numbers refresh every few hours as new roles post and older ones close, so this comparison reflects the market right now rather than a fixed survey. Use it as a directional benchmark when weighing one path against the other.