Side-by-side distribution
AI Engineer
$200,455
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 38.5%
- Live roles
- 5,105
Staff Engineer
$220,063
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 54.2%
- Live roles
- 4,821
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 (Reinforcement Learning)
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (RL Velocity)
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (Reinforcement Learning)
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (RL Velocity)
Senior AI Security Engineer II
Highest-paying jobs
Senior Staff Backend Engineer ($500k - $1.5m salary)
Senior Staff Frontend Engineer ($500k - $1.5m salary)
Senior Staff Full Stack Engineer ($500k - $1.5m salary)
Senior Staff React Native Engineer ($500k - 1.5m salary)
Staff Software Engineer (Backend)
Senior/Staff Backend Engineer, Applied AI
Senior/Staff Full Stack Engineer, Applied AI
Research Engineer (Senior Staff+), Safeguards Labs
Staff Research Engineer, Discovery Team
Senior Staff+ Software Engineer, Node Infra
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
OpenAI
|
$239,000 | 37 |
Mindrift
|
$312,000 | 31 |
Handshake
|
$252,500 | 22 |
Databricks
|
$224,163 | 22 |
Motional
|
$200,500 | 21 |
Pinterest
|
$265,928 | 20 |
Reddit
|
$276,000 | 19 |
Applied Intuition
|
$173,500 | 18 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Anduril Industries
|
$222,000 | 111 |
|
Databricks
|
$226,000 | 77 |
|
Anthropic
|
$405,000 | 57 |
Crusoe
|
$231,000 | 45 |
Grafana Labs
|
$147,923 | 45 |
Aurora Innovation
|
$231,500 | 40 |
Archer
|
$192,500 | 37 |
Okta
|
$206,000 | 34 |
AI Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Singapore | $250,000 | 4 |
| San Francisco | $229,756 | 466 |
| New York | $220,000 | 351 |
| Seattle | $205,500 | 98 |
| Chicago | $205,000 | 35 |
| Los Angeles | $200,000 | 33 |
| Austin | $196,000 | 44 |
| Bangalore | $194,838 | 3 |
| Sydney | $190,000 | 3 |
| Toronto | $187,429 | 58 |
Staff Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Dublin | $257,300 | 5 |
| Seattle | $250,000 | 154 |
| San Francisco | $244,573 | 626 |
| New York | $240,000 | 463 |
| Austin | $229,500 | 51 |
| Chicago | $227,250 | 44 |
| Los Angeles | $221,000 | 64 |
| Denver | $211,250 | 46 |
| Boston | $210,000 | 97 |
| London | $206,683 | 47 |
AI Engineer vs Staff Engineer: which pays more?
The median for AI Engineer is $200,455 per year (typically $165,350–$243,750), versus $220,063 for Staff Engineer ($188,813–$250,000). That puts Staff Engineer about 10% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so AI Engineer and Staff 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.