Side-by-side distribution
General Counsel
$263,750
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 61.1%
- Live roles
- 185
ML Engineer
$205,841
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 42.4%
- Live roles
- 1,747
Highest-paying jobs
Chief Legal Officer (CLO) ($1M-$5M salary)
General Counsel
Chief Legal Officer
Chief Legal Officer
Chief Legal Officer (Pacific Northwest or Hybrid) (964-SLS)
General Counsel
Deputy General Counsel
Associate General Counsel, Product & Commercial
Deputy General Counsel
Associate General Counsel, Hardware IP
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 |
|---|---|---|
FutureSight
|
$5,988 | 10 |
| TT The Trade Desk | $214,050 | 4 |
Hadrian Automation
|
$312,500 | 3 |
| SA Scale AI | $297,900 | 3 |
Fireblocks
|
$257,000 | 3 |
Robinhood
|
$236,000 | 3 |
|
STR
|
$355,000 | 2 |
The New York Times
|
$290,000 | 2 |
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 | 10 |
Nuro
|
$242,540 | 10 |
Applied Intuition
|
$173,500 | 10 |
General Counsel salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $253,500 | 23 |
| New York | $250,000 | 37 |
| Los Angeles | $229,325 | 10 |
| Boston | $216,345 | 4 |
| Chicago | $214,050 | 7 |
| Austin | $180,000 | 3 |
ML Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $240,000 | 169 |
| Austin | $230,000 | 12 |
| New York | $225,000 | 104 |
| Seattle | $212,444 | 41 |
| Los Angeles | $205,000 | 11 |
| Boston | $200,000 | 42 |
| Toronto | $191,250 | 28 |
| Paris | $185,000 | 6 |
| Denver | $175,000 | 5 |
| Atlanta | $174,825 | 8 |
General Counsel vs ML Engineer: which pays more?
The median for General Counsel is $263,750 per year (typically $214,050–$297,600), versus $205,841 for ML Engineer ($175,000–$250,750). That puts General Counsel about 28% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so General Counsel 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.