Side-by-side distribution
AI Engineer
$200,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 39.1%
- Live roles
- 5,349
Data Scientist
$189,780
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 39.7%
- Live roles
- 1,697
Highest-paying jobs
Lead Software Engineer, Generative AI
Senior Software Engineer, Generative AI
Senior/Staff Backend Engineer, Applied AI
Senior/Staff Full Stack Engineer, Applied AI
Backend Engineer, AI
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)
Highest-paying jobs
Machine Learning Scientist
Staff Data Scientist
Data Scientist
Senior Data Scientist (Credit)
Senior Data Scientist (Credit)
Senior Data Scientist (Credit)
Data Scientist
Applied Scientist
Data Scientist, Business
Data Scientist
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Mindrift
|
$72,800 | 47 |
|
OpenAI
|
$247,000 | 36 |
Unity Technologies
|
$198,550 | 34 |
Pinterest
|
$260,867 | 22 |
Motional
|
$200,500 | 22 |
| SE Sezzle | $70,499 | 22 |
Handshake
|
$252,500 | 20 |
Databricks
|
$221,553 | 20 |
Lyft
Instacart
Roblox
Accenture Federal Services
Xometry
Reddit
Data Scientist salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $210,000 | 160 |
| Seattle | $201,338 | 40 |
| New York | $190,000 | 136 |
| Denver | $185,250 | 4 |
| Boston | $183,025 | 26 |
| Austin | $164,625 | 10 |
| Los Angeles | $153,300 | 9 |
| London | $152,825 | 21 |
| Toronto | $152,000 | 32 |
| Berlin | $150,371 | 5 |
AI Engineer vs Data Scientist: which pays more?
The median for AI Engineer is $200,000 per year (typically $162,000–$237,500), versus $189,780 for Data Scientist ($149,031–$225,675). That puts AI Engineer about 5% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so AI Engineer and Data 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.