Side-by-side distribution
AI Engineer
$201,097
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 36.4%
- Live roles
- 5,252
Data Engineer
$170,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 34.9%
- Live roles
- 3,000
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
Staff+ Research Engineer, RL Data Platform
Data Infrastructure Engineer, Pre-training
Data Engineer
Senior Data Engineer
Staff / Principal Data Engineer
Software Engineer - Data Aquisition (systems)
Software Engineer, Data Acquisition
Senior Staff Backline Engineer - Data & AI
Machine Learning Engineer, Distributed Data Systems - Robotics
Software Engineer, Frontier Data Products
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
|
OpenAI
|
$307,500 | 33 |
|
Databricks
|
$222,325 | 23 |
Anduril Industries
|
$222,000 | 21 |
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 |
|---|---|---|
Speechify
|
$170,000 | 102 |
Mindrift
|
$83,200 | 32 |
Accenture Federal Services
|
$144,250 | 27 |
Olsson
|
$121,500 | 21 |
|
OpenAI
|
$315,000 | 17 |
Esri
|
$113,360 | 15 |
|
Anduril Industries
|
$181,500 | 14 |
|
Anthropic
|
$362,500 | 13 |
AI Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Singapore | $250,000 | 7 |
| San Francisco | $225,900 | 441 |
| New York | $222,325 | 338 |
| Boston | $215,000 | 71 |
| Seattle | $210,000 | 101 |
| Austin | $208,750 | 30 |
| Los Angeles | $206,300 | 33 |
| Chicago | $200,000 | 29 |
| Atlanta | $183,975 | 13 |
| Denver | $181,908 | 20 |
Data Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $217,500 | 166 |
| New York | $213,281 | 168 |
| Seattle | $203,750 | 42 |
| Boston | $185,000 | 29 |
| Los Angeles | $175,000 | 21 |
| Chicago | $175,000 | 34 |
| Austin | $168,935 | 17 |
| Denver | $150,000 | 28 |
| Atlanta | $145,163 | 12 |
| London | $144,187 | 11 |
AI Engineer vs Data Engineer: which pays more?
The median for AI Engineer is $201,097 per year (typically $164,350–$245,000), versus $170,000 for Data Engineer ($142,500–$214,700). That puts AI Engineer about 18% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so AI Engineer and Data Engineer 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.