Side-by-side distribution
Engineering Manager
$190,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 42.6%
- Live roles
- 4,368
Research Scientist
$219,375
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 53.2%
- Live roles
- 380
Highest-paying jobs
Senior Engineering Program Manager II - New Ventures
Business Development Manager
Business Development Manager (Japanese and English bilingual)
Business Development Manager
Engineering Manager, GPU (ML Accelerator)
Engineering Manager, Research Data Platform
Engineering Manager, Research Productivity
Senior Engineering Manager
Senior Engineering Manager - Agentic Process & Self-Service
Senior Engineering Manager, Progressive Onboarding and Funnel Optimisation
Highest-paying jobs
Research Scientist, Interpretability
Research Engineer/Research Scientist, Pre-training
Research Engineer / Research Scientist - Personal AGI, Personality and Model Behavior
Research Engineer / Research Scientist -Personal AGI, Proactivity
Research Engineer / Research Scientist- Personal AGI (Post Training)
Research Engineer/Research Scientist, Personal AGI-Model Experience
Research Engineer/Research Scientist - Personal AGI, North Stars
Staff / Principal Research Scientist - USA
Research Engineer / Research Scientist, Tokens
Research Engineer / Scientist, Alignment
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Anduril Industries
|
$193,000 | 37 |
Databricks
|
$226,881 | 36 |
Brex
|
$254,250 | 29 |
Atwell, LLC
|
$117,500 | 24 |
|
OpenAI
|
$339,000 | 22 |
|
Anthropic
|
$445,000 | 21 |
Harvey
|
$350,000 | 20 |
DoorDash USA
|
$239,400 | 19 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
|
Anthropic
|
$377,500 | 12 |
|
Anduril Industries
|
$221,000 | 8 |
Astera Institute
|
$225,000 | 7 |
|
OpenAI
|
$425,000 | 6 |
Waabi
|
$212,750 | 6 |
| SA Scale AI | $243,000 | 5 |
Nuro
|
$229,900 | 5 |
World Labs
|
$300,000 | 4 |
Research Scientist salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Seattle | $291,650 | 11 |
| Boston | $275,000 | 8 |
| San Francisco | $267,500 | 67 |
| New York | $243,000 | 38 |
| Toronto | $212,000 | 8 |
| London | $203,341 | 10 |
| Los Angeles | $80,000 | 3 |
Engineering Manager vs Research Scientist: which pays more?
The median for Engineering Manager is $190,000 per year (typically $141,791–$238,500), versus $219,375 for Research Scientist ($176,950–$275,000). That puts Research Scientist about 15% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Engineering Manager and Research Scientist 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.