Side-by-side distribution
Backend Engineer
$185,500
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 33.3%
- Live roles
- 2,441
ML Engineer
$205,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 42.3%
- Live roles
- 1,743
Highest-paying jobs
Intermediate Backend Software Engineer
Senior Staff Backend Engineer ($500k - $1.5m salary)
Lead Software Engineer (Backend)
Staff Software Engineer (Backend)
Senior/Staff Backend Engineer, Applied AI
Backend Engineer, AI
Backend Engineer
Senior Backend Engineer
Senior Backend Engineer (Java)
Senior Backend Engineer (Java)
Highest-paying jobs
Senior Software Engineer, Machine Learning (Audio)
Machine Learning Engineer - Fraud Risk
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (Reinforcement Learning)
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (RL Velocity)
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (Reinforcement Learning)
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (RL Velocity)
Machine Learning Engineer, Integrity
Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Ads Delivery
Machine Learning Engineer, Speech LLM Training - San Francisco
Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Ad Serving
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Air Apps
|
$68,094 | 33 |
Affirm
|
$183,000 | 20 |
Databricks
|
$205,100 | 16 |
Grafana Labs
|
$192,485 | 11 |
|
OpenAI
|
$309,000 | 9 |
Teleport
|
$261,440 | 9 |
Verkada
|
$215,000 | 9 |
Whoop
|
$150,000 | 9 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Reddit
|
$276,000 | 18 |
|
Pinterest
|
$260,867 | 17 |
Motional
|
$185,500 | 17 |
Roblox
|
$297,743 | 14 |
Airbnb
|
$274,500 | 14 |
Torc Robotics
|
$249,000 | 11 |
Nuro
|
$242,540 | 10 |
Applied Intuition
|
$173,500 | 10 |
Backend Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $220,000 | 165 |
| New York | $207,500 | 163 |
| Seattle | $205,500 | 38 |
| Denver | $195,875 | 4 |
| Austin | $189,750 | 6 |
| Los Angeles | $185,000 | 13 |
| Boston | $178,750 | 20 |
| Chicago | $175,000 | 5 |
| Singapore | $151,034 | 3 |
| Toronto | $147,978 | 39 |
ML Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $240,000 | 164 |
| Austin | $235,000 | 11 |
| New York | $225,000 | 100 |
| Seattle | $212,444 | 39 |
| Los Angeles | $205,000 | 11 |
| Boston | $200,000 | 41 |
| Toronto | $195,000 | 29 |
| Paris | $185,000 | 6 |
| Atlanta | $174,825 | 8 |
| Chicago | $173,875 | 12 |
Backend Engineer vs ML Engineer: which pays more?
The median for Backend Engineer is $185,500 per year (typically $145,499–$225,000), versus $205,000 for ML Engineer ($173,500–$250,000). That puts ML Engineer about 11% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Backend Engineer and ML 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.