Side-by-side distribution
AI Engineer
$200,455
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 38.5%
- Live roles
- 5,105
Data Engineer
$170,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 34.5%
- Live roles
- 3,152
Highest-paying jobs
Senior Software Engineer, Machine Learning (Audio)
Senior/Staff Backend Engineer, Applied AI
Senior/Staff Full Stack Engineer, Applied AI
Machine Learning Engineer - Fraud Risk
Backend Engineer, AI
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (Reinforcement Learning)
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (RL Velocity)
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (RL Velocity)
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (Reinforcement Learning)
Senior AI Security Engineer II
Highest-paying jobs
Senior Data Engineer
Senior Data Engineer
Senior Data Engineer
Data Engineer
Staff / Principal Data Engineer
Senior Data Engineer
Senior Data Engineer
Data Center Design Engineer, Electrical - Industrial Compute
Software Engineer, Frontier Data Products
Data Engineer
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 |
|---|---|---|
Speechify
|
$170,000 | 103 |
|
Mindrift
|
$76,960 | 57 |
Accenture Federal Services
|
$153,850 | 22 |
Esri
|
$134,264 | 16 |
Olsson
|
$122,500 | 14 |
Anduril Industries
|
$174,500 | 13 |
|
OpenAI
|
$312,000 | 12 |
Air Apps
|
$70,422 | 10 |
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 |
Data Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $216,000 | 165 |
| New York | $200,000 | 160 |
| Seattle | $191,100 | 44 |
| Austin | $177,500 | 25 |
| Chicago | $170,000 | 40 |
| Boston | $170,000 | 33 |
| Atlanta | $170,000 | 12 |
| Los Angeles | $160,000 | 21 |
| Denver | $159,370 | 25 |
| Toronto | $147,500 | 26 |
AI Engineer vs Data Engineer: which pays more?
The median for AI Engineer is $200,455 per year (typically $165,350–$243,750), versus $170,000 for Data Engineer ($140,938–$207,500). 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.