Side-by-side distribution
Data Engineer
$170,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 34.8%
- Live roles
- 3,005
MLOps
$189,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 19.4%
- Live roles
- 108
Highest-paying jobs
Staff+ Research Engineer, RL Data Platform
Data Infrastructure Engineer, Pre-training
Data Engineer
Senior Data Engineer
Staff / Principal Data Engineer
Software Engineer - Data Aquisition (systems)
Software Engineer, Data Acquisition
Senior Staff Backline Engineer - Data & AI
Machine Learning Engineer, Distributed Data Systems - Robotics
Software Engineer, Frontier Data Products
Highest-paying jobs
Senior Machine Learning Engineer, DevOps/SRE
Staff Machine Learning Operations Engineer
Staff Engineer - ML Infra / MLOps
Staff ML Ops Engineer
Lead Software Platform Engineer, MLOps
Senior ML Ops Engineer (Machine Learning Infrastructure)
MLOps Engineer
MLOps Engineer (JAX, PyTorch, Pallas/Triton)
ML Ops Infrastructure Engineer
Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Operations Research
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Speechify
|
$170,000 | 102 |
Mindrift
|
$83,200 | 32 |
Accenture Federal Services
|
$144,250 | 27 |
Olsson
|
$121,500 | 21 |
|
OpenAI
|
$315,000 | 17 |
Esri
|
$113,360 | 15 |
Anduril Industries
|
$181,500 | 14 |
|
Anthropic
|
$362,500 | 13 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Torc Robotics
|
$142,650 | 2 |
|
Garner Health
|
$324,500 | 1 |
|
Roku
|
$254,875 | 1 |
|
Quince
|
$251,500 | 1 |
|
LVT
|
$242,650 | 1 |
|
TetraScience
|
$235,000 | 1 |
| AM Atomic Machines | $225,000 | 1 |
|
Instacart
|
$212,750 | 1 |
Data Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $217,500 | 166 |
| New York | $213,281 | 168 |
| Seattle | $203,750 | 42 |
| Boston | $185,000 | 29 |
| Los Angeles | $175,000 | 21 |
| Chicago | $175,000 | 34 |
| Austin | $168,935 | 17 |
| Denver | $150,000 | 28 |
| Atlanta | $145,163 | 12 |
| London | $144,187 | 11 |
Data Engineer vs MLOps: which pays more?
The median for Data Engineer is $170,000 per year (typically $143,125–$215,000), versus $189,000 for MLOps ($152,900–$225,000). That puts MLOps about 11% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Data Engineer and MLOps 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.