Side-by-side distribution
Data Scientist
$195,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 42.4%
- Live roles
- 1,669
MLOps
$189,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 19.4%
- Live roles
- 108
Highest-paying jobs
Data Scientist (Growth Team)
Data Scientist, SMB Ads Growth
Data Scientist, Ads Demand
Data Scientist, Cybersecurity
Data Scientist, Identity
Founding Data Scientist, Pricing & Monetization
Data Scientist
Data Scientist, Developer Productivity
Data Scientist, Business
Data Scientist
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
Launch Potato
Lyft
Pinterest
Reddit
Compass
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 Scientist salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $224,500 | 181 |
| New York | $208,750 | 163 |
| Boston | $204,750 | 24 |
| Seattle | $203,175 | 47 |
| Austin | $187,500 | 14 |
| Chicago | $187,500 | 17 |
| Denver | $187,500 | 7 |
| Atlanta | $187,500 | 7 |
| Los Angeles | $183,750 | 18 |
| Berlin | $155,722 | 4 |
Data Scientist vs MLOps: which pays more?
The median for Data Scientist is $195,000 per year (typically $152,500–$235,000), versus $189,000 for MLOps ($152,900–$225,000). That puts Data Scientist about 3% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Data Scientist 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.