Side-by-side distribution
AI Engineer
$200,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 38.8%
- Live roles
- 5,113
Security Engineer
$190,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 47.4%
- Live roles
- 1,974
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
Cyber Security Engineer (5462)
Security Engineer
Senior AI Security Engineer II
Senior Security Platform Engineer I
Lead Security Engineer
Offensive Security Engineer, Agent Products
Principal Security Engineer, Infrastructure Security
Principal Software Engineer, Infrastructure Security
Staff+ Application Security Engineer
Staff+ Application Security Engineer - M&A
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 |
|---|---|---|
Aurora Innovation
|
$222,000 | 22 |
Anduril Industries
|
$202,000 | 20 |
Accenture Federal Services
|
$151,800 | 19 |
SpaceX
|
$142,500 | 16 |
Mozilla
|
$86,043 | 16 |
Palantir
|
$170,000 | 14 |
|
OpenAI
|
$339,000 | 13 |
|
Anthropic
|
$362,500 | 12 |
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 |
AI Engineer vs Security Engineer: which pays more?
The median for AI Engineer is $200,000 per year (typically $165,000–$243,109), versus $190,000 for Security Engineer ($153,550–$235,000). 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 Security 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.