Side-by-side distribution
AI Engineer
$201,325
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 36.4%
- Live roles
- 5,240
Data Analyst
$110,250
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 29.9%
- Live roles
- 1,183
Highest-paying jobs
Senior Software Engineer, Machine Learning (Audio)
Senior/Staff Full Stack Engineer, Applied AI
Senior/Staff Backend Engineer, Applied AI
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (Reinforcement Learning)
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (RL Velocity)
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (Reinforcement Learning)
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (RL Velocity)
Software Engineer, ML Networking
AI Product Engineer
Senior AI Fullstack Engineer
Highest-paying jobs
Senior Data Analyst, Credit Risk
Senior Data Scientist / Analyst, Finance
Senior Data Scientist / Analyst, Growth
Senior Data Scientist / Analyst, Product
Senior Data Scientist / Analyst, Markets
Software Engineer, Macro Quant Analytics Technology
Senior Data Scientist / Analyst, Fraud & Risk
Senior Data Scientist / Analyst, Institutional
Staff Analytics Analyst, Full Stack (Revenue)
Trust & Safety Ads Operations Analyst, Data
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
|
OpenAI
|
$307,500 | 33 |
Databricks
|
$222,325 | 23 |
Anduril Industries
|
$222,000 | 20 |
Nuro
|
$242,540 | 19 |
|
Anthropic
|
$425,000 | 17 |
Torc Robotics
|
$195,050 | 17 |
XPENG
|
$257,688 | 16 |
| SA Scale AI | $232,360 | 16 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Air Apps
|
$65,173 | 10 |
Accenture Federal Services
|
$105,000 | 8 |
|
Polymarket
|
$250,000 | 6 |
Lyft
|
$90,804 | 6 |
Klaviyo
|
$155,000 | 5 |
|
Affirm
|
$189,000 | 4 |
Snowflake
|
$181,800 | 4 |
Fivetran
|
$175,592 | 4 |
AI Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Singapore | $250,000 | 7 |
| San Francisco | $227,500 | 441 |
| New York | $222,325 | 338 |
| Boston | $215,000 | 71 |
| Seattle | $210,000 | 102 |
| Austin | $208,750 | 30 |
| Los Angeles | $206,300 | 33 |
| Chicago | $200,000 | 29 |
| Atlanta | $183,975 | 13 |
| Denver | $181,908 | 20 |
Data Analyst salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Seattle | $159,500 | 11 |
| Boston | $150,000 | 15 |
| New York | $140,000 | 77 |
| San Francisco | $140,000 | 30 |
| Los Angeles | $134,000 | 6 |
| Austin | $121,800 | 7 |
| Denver | $115,000 | 11 |
| Singapore | $114,400 | 3 |
| Atlanta | $102,500 | 3 |
| Chicago | $96,511 | 14 |
AI Engineer vs Data Analyst: which pays more?
The median for AI Engineer is $201,325 per year (typically $163,188–$246,000), versus $110,250 for Data Analyst ($85,074–$154,500). That puts AI Engineer about 83% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so AI Engineer and Data Analyst 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.