Side-by-side distribution
AI Engineer
$200,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 38.8%
- Live roles
- 5,113
Privacy Officer
$233,079
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 40.8%
- Live roles
- 49
Highest-paying jobs
Senior Software Engineer, Machine Learning (Audio)
Senior/Staff Full Stack Engineer, Applied AI
Senior/Staff Backend Engineer, Applied AI
Machine Learning Engineer - Fraud Risk
Backend Engineer, AI
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (RL Velocity)
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (Reinforcement Learning)
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (RL Velocity)
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (Reinforcement Learning)
Senior AI Security Engineer II
Highest-paying jobs
Associate General Counsel, Product and Privacy
Director, Corporate Counsel - Privacy
Senior Privacy & AI Counsel, San Francisco, CA (Hybrid) (963-SLS)
Associate General Counsel, Privacy & Compliance
Senior Counsel, Privacy and Compliance
Associate General Counsel, Product & Privacy
Senior Product & Privacy Counsel
Senior Privacy Counsel
Privacy Counsel
Senior Counsel, Privacy and Regulatory
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Mindrift
|
$156,000 | 55 |
OpenAI
|
$239,000 | 39 |
Handshake
|
$252,500 | 23 |
Databricks
|
$222,325 | 23 |
| SE Sezzle | $85,000 | 23 |
Motional
|
$200,500 | 21 |
Grafana Labs
|
$145,807 | 20 |
Reddit
|
$276,000 | 19 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| SA Scale AI | $297,900 | 1 |
|
Okta
|
$285,000 | 1 |
|
Recursion
|
$280,830 | 1 |
|
Solutuslegal
|
$270,000 | 1 |
|
Neuralink
|
$253,000 | 1 |
|
Verkada
|
$245,000 | 1 |
|
Nextdoor
|
$240,000 | 1 |
|
Teleport
|
$239,000 | 1 |
AI Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $228,100 | 466 |
| New York | $220,000 | 351 |
| Singapore | $212,980 | 7 |
| Seattle | $205,000 | 99 |
| Chicago | $205,000 | 37 |
| Los Angeles | $200,000 | 33 |
| Bangalore | $194,838 | 3 |
| Austin | $194,500 | 45 |
| Sydney | $190,000 | 3 |
| Toronto | $187,359 | 61 |
Privacy Officer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| New York | $257,240 | 4 |
| San Francisco | $233,650 | 9 |
AI Engineer vs Privacy Officer: which pays more?
The median for AI Engineer is $200,000 per year (typically $165,000–$243,109), versus $233,079 for Privacy Officer ($202,565–$252,513). That puts Privacy Officer about 17% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so AI Engineer and Privacy Officer 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.