Side-by-side distribution
AI Engineer
$200,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 38.8%
- Live roles
- 5,113
Rust
$190,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 26.2%
- Live roles
- 122
Highest-paying jobs
Senior/Staff Full Stack Engineer, Applied AI
Senior/Staff Backend Engineer, Applied AI
Senior Software Engineer, Machine Learning (Audio)
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
Software Engineer - Platform Infrastructure (Rust, C++)
Staff Rust SDK Engineer
Founding Rust Engineer
Software Engineer 3 - Linux/Bash/Python/Rust/NoSQL/Docker/Kubernetes/Helm
Software Engineer, Rust, Agent Runtime
Principal Rust Developer
Principal Rust Developer
New Grad Software Engineer (Backend Rust)
Senior Software Engineer (Backend Rust)
Software Engineer (Backend Rust)
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Mindrift
|
$156,000 | 55 |
OpenAI
|
$239,000 | 39 |
Handshake
|
$252,500 | 23 |
| SE Sezzle | $85,000 | 23 |
Databricks
|
$224,163 | 22 |
Motional
|
$200,500 | 21 |
Grafana Labs
|
$145,807 | 20 |
Reddit
|
$276,000 | 19 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Anduril Industries
|
$193,000 | 3 |
|
N1
|
$190,000 | 3 |
|
Zscaler
|
$221,000 | 2 |
Certik
|
$141,000 | 2 |
Blockhouse
|
$85,500 | 2 |
|
xAI
|
$310,000 | 1 |
|
Twin Labs
|
$261,899 | 1 |
|
LiveKit
|
$250,000 | 1 |
AI Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Singapore | $250,000 | 5 |
| San Francisco | $226,750 | 462 |
| New York | $220,000 | 350 |
| Seattle | $205,500 | 95 |
| 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 |
Rust salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| New York | $190,000 | 6 |
| San Francisco | $190,000 | 5 |
| Toronto | $127,500 | 3 |
AI Engineer vs Rust: which pays more?
The median for AI Engineer is $200,000 per year (typically $165,000–$243,109), versus $190,000 for Rust ($155,000–$203,000). That puts AI Engineer about 5% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so AI Engineer and Rust 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.