Side-by-side distribution
AI Engineer
$201,325
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 36.4%
- Live roles
- 5,240
Data Scientist
$195,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 42.4%
- Live roles
- 1,669
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
Data Scientist (Growth Team)
Data Scientist, SMB Ads Growth
Data Scientist, Ads Demand
Data Scientist, Cybersecurity
Data Scientist, Identity
Founding Data Scientist, Pricing & Monetization
Data Scientist
Data Scientist, Developer Productivity
Data Scientist, Business
Data Scientist
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 |
Launch Potato
Lyft
Pinterest
Roku
Reddit
Compass
AI Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Singapore | $250,000 | 7 |
| San Francisco | $225,900 | 443 |
| 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 Scientist salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $224,750 | 180 |
| New York | $208,750 | 163 |
| Boston | $204,750 | 24 |
| Seattle | $203,175 | 47 |
| Austin | $187,500 | 14 |
| Chicago | $187,500 | 17 |
| Denver | $187,500 | 7 |
| Atlanta | $187,500 | 7 |
| Los Angeles | $183,750 | 18 |
| Berlin | $155,722 | 4 |
AI Engineer vs Data Scientist: which pays more?
The median for AI Engineer is $201,325 per year (typically $163,188–$246,000), versus $195,000 for Data Scientist ($152,500–$235,000). That puts AI Engineer about 3% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so AI Engineer and Data Scientist 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.