Side-by-side distribution
AI Engineer
$185,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 33%
- Live roles
- 9,509
Data Scientist
$167,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 41.2%
- Live roles
- 2,905
Highest-paying jobs
Senior/Staff Backend Engineer, Applied AI
Senior/Staff Full Stack Engineer, Applied AI
Senior Software Engineer, Machine Learning (Audio)
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (RL Velocity)
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (Reinforcement Learning)
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (Reinforcement Learning)
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (RL Velocity)
Software Engineer - AI
Machine Learning Engineer ($400k - $600k salary)
Senior Software Engineer, Machine Learning
Highest-paying jobs
Data Scientist, FinEng
Data Scientist, SMB Ads Growth
Data Scientist, Cybersecurity
Data Scientist, Ads Demand
Data Scientist, B2B Strategy & Intelligence
Staff Data Scientist - Growth & Marketing ($400k - $500k)
Data Scientist
Senior / Staff Data Scientist, Applied AI
Research Scientist - Environments, Data and Post-Training
Machine Learning Research Engineer/Scientist
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Speechify
|
$170,000 | 144 |
Mindrift
|
$76,960 | 77 |
Booz Allen Hamilton
|
$162,000 | 76 |
|
OpenAI
|
$307,500 | 39 |
SpaceX
|
$145,000 | 35 |
General Motors
|
$203,125 | 34 |
Thomson Reuters
|
$204,200 | 30 |
CACI
|
$148,825 | 30 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
|
Booz Allen Hamilton
|
$126,800 | 113 |
Leidos
|
$151,475 | 21 |
|
OpenAI
|
$332,250 | 16 |
Accenture Federal Services
|
$166,850 | 16 |
Roche
|
$228,700 | 15 |
RELX
|
$133,100 | 15 |
Faire
|
$250,750 | 14 |
Lyft
|
$159,627 | 14 |
AI Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $229,800 | 519 |
| New York | $212,500 | 483 |
| Seattle | $204,000 | 187 |
| Los Angeles | $203,625 | 64 |
| Boston | $196,000 | 137 |
| Singapore | $187,200 | 9 |
| Denver | $185,500 | 64 |
| Austin | $180,675 | 98 |
| Atlanta | $174,828 | 70 |
| London | $167,012 | 54 |
Data Scientist salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $218,500 | 213 |
| Seattle | $205,025 | 64 |
| New York | $198,000 | 195 |
| Singapore | $187,200 | 3 |
| Boston | $172,450 | 42 |
| Denver | $167,950 | 13 |
| Austin | $165,500 | 21 |
| Los Angeles | $157,500 | 30 |
| Chicago | $150,000 | 47 |
| Atlanta | $142,610 | 16 |
AI Engineer vs Data Scientist: which pays more?
The median for AI Engineer is $185,000 per year (typically $145,000–$228,900), versus $167,000 for Data Scientist ($130,000–$213,757). That puts AI Engineer about 11% 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.