Side-by-side distribution
ML Engineer
$205,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 42.3%
- Live roles
- 1,743
Tech Lead
$185,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 34.3%
- Live roles
- 2,598
Highest-paying jobs
Senior Software Engineer, Machine Learning (Audio)
Machine Learning Engineer - Fraud Risk
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (Reinforcement Learning)
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (RL Velocity)
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, Ad Serving
Highest-paying jobs
Senior Business Development Lead - Retail Tech & Software Services
Lead Software Engineer (Backend)
Customer Engineering Lead
Technical Lead, Safety Research
Data Engineering Lead
Lead Security Engineer
Staff Engineer, Emulation Technical Lead
RISC-V AI / HPC & Agentic Software Engineering Lead
Technical Lead Manager, Data Engineering, Trust & Safety
Lead Machine Learning Inference Engineer, Advertising
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 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Anduril Industries
|
$170,000 | 33 |
STR
|
$198,250 | 26 |
|
Motional
|
$237,500 | 21 |
Accenture Federal Services
|
$197,750 | 21 |
Fluidstack
|
$275,000 | 19 |
Scout Motors
|
$176,250 | 17 |
|
OpenAI
|
$338,750 | 14 |
Relativity Space
|
$167,500 | 14 |
ML Engineer salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $240,000 | 166 |
| Austin | $235,000 | 11 |
| New York | $225,000 | 101 |
| Seattle | $212,444 | 39 |
| Los Angeles | $205,000 | 11 |
| Boston | $200,000 | 42 |
| Toronto | $195,000 | 29 |
| Paris | $185,000 | 6 |
| Atlanta | $174,825 | 8 |
| Chicago | $173,875 | 12 |
Tech Lead salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Austin | $266,500 | 24 |
| San Francisco | $237,500 | 141 |
| Seattle | $234,225 | 34 |
| New York | $222,000 | 100 |
| Boston | $212,500 | 51 |
| Atlanta | $190,000 | 13 |
| Denver | $183,500 | 15 |
| Los Angeles | $175,000 | 19 |
| Toronto | $167,673 | 26 |
| Chicago | $166,000 | 28 |
ML Engineer vs Tech Lead: which pays more?
The median for ML Engineer is $205,000 per year (typically $173,500–$250,000), versus $185,000 for Tech Lead ($152,625–$222,675). That puts ML Engineer about 11% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so ML Engineer and Tech Lead 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.