Side-by-side distribution
ML Engineer
$205,841
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 42.4%
- Live roles
- 1,747
Privacy Officer
$233,650
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 42%
- Live roles
- 50
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
Highest-paying jobs
Associate General Counsel, Product and Privacy
Director, Corporate Counsel - Privacy
Senior Privacy & AI Counsel, San Francisco, CA (Hybrid) (963-SLS)
Associate General Counsel, Privacy & Compliance
Senior Counsel, Privacy and Compliance
Associate General Counsel, Product & Privacy
Product & Privacy Counsel
Senior Product & Privacy Counsel
Senior Privacy Counsel
Privacy Counsel
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 | 11 |
Nuro
|
$242,540 | 10 |
Applied Intuition
|
$173,500 | 10 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| SA Scale AI | $297,900 | 1 |
|
Okta
|
$285,000 | 1 |
|
Recursion
|
$280,830 | 1 |
|
Solutuslegal
|
$270,000 | 1 |
|
Neuralink
|
$253,000 | 1 |
|
Nova Credit
|
$252,350 | 1 |
|
Verkada
|
$245,000 | 1 |
|
Nextdoor
|
$240,000 | 1 |
ML Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $240,000 | 169 |
| Austin | $230,000 | 12 |
| New York | $225,000 | 103 |
| 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 |
Privacy Officer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| New York | $252,350 | 5 |
| San Francisco | $233,650 | 9 |
ML Engineer vs Privacy Officer: which pays more?
The median for ML Engineer is $205,841 per year (typically $175,000–$250,750), versus $233,650 for Privacy Officer ($206,254–$252,350). That puts Privacy Officer about 14% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so ML Engineer and Privacy Officer 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.