Side-by-side distribution
CISO
$287,775
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 35%
- Live roles
- 100
ML Engineer
$205,841
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 42.4%
- Live roles
- 1,747
Highest-paying jobs
CISO
Chief Information Security Officer
Head of Security & Compliance
Head of Security & Compliance
Chief Information Security Officer
Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)
Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)
Chief Information Security Officer
Field Chief Information Security Officer (Field CISO)
Head of Security & Compliance
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, Search
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
|
Masabi
|
$482,308 | 3 |
Harvey
|
$317,500 | 2 |
|
Hippo Insurance
|
$313,750 | 2 |
|
DriveWealth
|
$308,750 | 2 |
NexHealth
|
$180,000 | 2 |
| DR DFO Referrals | $530,000 | 1 |
|
Rain
|
$524,500 | 1 |
|
Compass
|
$375,000 | 1 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Reddit
|
$276,000 | 18 |
|
Pinterest
|
$260,867 | 18 |
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 |
CISO salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Austin | $313,750 | 3 |
| New York | $295,000 | 11 |
| San Francisco | $227,500 | 9 |
| London | $222,500 | 3 |
| Seattle | $201,250 | 4 |
ML Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $240,000 | 168 |
| Austin | $230,000 | 12 |
| New York | $225,000 | 102 |
| Seattle | $212,444 | 41 |
| Los Angeles | $205,000 | 11 |
| Boston | $200,000 | 42 |
| Toronto | $195,000 | 27 |
| Paris | $185,000 | 6 |
| Denver | $175,000 | 5 |
| Atlanta | $174,825 | 8 |
CISO vs ML Engineer: which pays more?
The median for CISO is $287,775 per year (typically $224,375–$319,375), versus $205,841 for ML Engineer ($175,000–$250,750). That puts CISO about 40% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so CISO 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.