Side-by-side distribution
Data Scientist
$190,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 42.8%
- Live roles
- 1,661
ML Engineer
$205,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 42.3%
- Live roles
- 1,743
Highest-paying jobs
Data Scientist
Senior Data Scientist (Credit)
Senior Data Scientist (Credit)
Senior Data Scientist (Credit)
Data Scientist, Identity
Data Scientist
Applied Scientist, Experimentation
Data Scientist, Supply
Data Scientist, Developer Productivity
Machine Learning Scientist
Highest-paying jobs
Senior Software Engineer, Machine Learning (Audio)
Machine Learning Engineer - Fraud Risk
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (RL Velocity)
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (Reinforcement Learning)
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 |
|---|---|---|
Launch Potato
|
$187,500 | 24 |
| GR GRVTY | $170,000 | 17 |
Lyft
|
$153,200 | 15 |
|
Pinterest
|
$213,757 | 13 |
Roblox
|
$293,245 | 11 |
Reddit
|
$260,450 | 10 |
Accenture Federal Services
|
$157,675 | 10 |
|
OpenAI
|
$309,000 | 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 |
Data Scientist salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $212,500 | 161 |
| Seattle | $191,500 | 46 |
| New York | $190,000 | 139 |
| Los Angeles | $187,500 | 17 |
| Austin | $187,500 | 9 |
| Denver | $187,500 | 6 |
| Boston | $181,250 | 30 |
| London | $160,895 | 21 |
| Chicago | $153,300 | 21 |
| Toronto | $151,200 | 29 |
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 |
Data Scientist vs ML Engineer: which pays more?
The median for Data Scientist is $190,000 per year (typically $149,750–$230,000), versus $205,000 for ML Engineer ($173,500–$250,000). That puts ML Engineer about 8% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Data Scientist 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.