The latest numbers always live on our AI engineer salary page. This edition freezes the Q2 2026 snapshot: what US employers actually offered AI and ML engineers in 1,391 certified H-1B filings covering determinations from October 1, 2025 through March 31, 2026.
The headline: the median base salary for AI/ML engineering roles reached $184,000 — and that figure is conservative by construction, because it comes from the bottom of each disclosed wage range and excludes equity and bonuses entirely. For comparison, the government-set prevailing wage for the same roles and locations has a median of $161,600. Employers are choosing to pay about $22,400 above the legal minimum, which is what a genuine skills shortage looks like in wage data.
Headline numbers
| Measure | Annual base salary |
|---|---|
| Median | $184,000 |
| 25th percentile | $149,200 |
| 75th percentile | $222,000 |
| 90th percentile | $264,500 |
The middle half of all offers sits between $149,200 and $222,000. The top tenth of offers cleared $264,500 in base salary alone — at the large tech companies that dominate these filings, total compensation at that level is typically well past $400,000 once equity is included.
Salaries by role
| Role | Filings | 25th percentile | Median | 75th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ML Engineer | 1,009 | $152,200 | $187,600 | $225,100 |
| AI Engineer | 325 | $130,000 | $170,000 | $210,000 |
| LLM / GenAI Engineer | 39 | $114,000 | $160,000 | $220,000 |
| MLOps Engineer | 18 | $156,300 | $190,800 | $221,900 |
"Machine Learning Engineer" is still the title the market has standardized on — it accounts for nearly three quarters of all filings and pays a median $17,600 above the more generic "AI Engineer" title. The dedicated LLM/GenAI titles are still rare in visa filings (39 cases) and show the widest spread of any bucket: the middle half runs from $114,000 to $220,000, and the 90th percentile reaches $372,000. When a job title is that new, companies haven't agreed yet on what the role is worth, and both bargain-hunting and aggressive poaching show up in the same column.
Salaries by seniority
| Level | Filings | Median base salary |
|---|---|---|
| Entry | 20 | $156,300 |
| Mid | 826 | $174,000 |
| Senior | 349 | $191,000 |
| Staff+ | 196 | $218,200 |
Each seniority step is worth roughly $17,000–$27,000 in median base salary. Note how few entry-level filings there are: companies almost never sponsor visas for junior AI roles, so the entry figure describes a small and unusually strong group.
Top-paying employers
| Employer | Filings | Median base salary |
|---|---|---|
| Adobe Inc. | 120 | $174,300 |
| Pinterest, Inc. | 72 | $179,400 |
| PayPal, Inc. | 49 | $187,700 |
| SNAP INC. | 29 | $180,700 |
| Wayfair LLC | 27 | $184,000 |
| Expedia, Inc. | 23 | $163,300 |
| Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. | 22 | $140,800 |
| Apple Inc. | 21 | $194,000 |
| Meta Platforms, Inc | 20 | $214,000 |
| JPMorgan Chase & Co. | 19 | $175,000 |
Among employers with at least 10 filings, ByteDance ($295,100) and Netflix ($251,200) disclosed the highest median base salaries — both companies famously weight cash over equity in their compensation. Among the highest-volume filers, Meta leads at $214,000.
Salaries by metro
| Metro | Filings | Median base salary |
|---|---|---|
| San Jose, CA | 200 | $200,000 |
| San Francisco, CA | 116 | $204,000 |
| New York, NY | 103 | $180,000 |
| Seattle, WA | 83 | $180,700 |
| Palo Alto, CA | 71 | $192,400 |
| Bellevue, WA | 46 | $211,100 |
| Austin, TX | 44 | $136,000 |
| Boston, MA | 40 | $184,000 |
| Mountain View, CA | 39 | $240,000 |
| Santa Clara, CA | 32 | $226,100 |
Geography moves AI engineering pay by six figures. Mountain View's median ($240,000) is $104,000 above Austin's ($136,000) — a 76% premium for the same job family. The South Bay peninsula towns (Mountain View, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, San Mateo) all cleared $225,000, while the big hiring volume sits in San Jose, San Francisco, New York, and Seattle at $180,000–$204,000.
Methodology
These figures come from the US Department of Labor's public Labor Condition Application disclosure data (LCA_Disclosure_Data_FY2026_Q2.xlsx). We count only certified, full-time H-1B filings whose job title matches AI/ML engineering roles, one filing per case number, using the bottom of the disclosed wage range — so these are conservative base-salary figures, not total compensation. Breakdowns with fewer than 10 filings are suppressed. Full details are on the salary page.
FAQ
Is this total compensation?
No — these are annual base salaries as disclosed in H-1B filings. Equity and bonuses, which can be substantial at large tech companies, are not included.
Why H-1B data?
Because it's one of the only salary datasets built from legally binding offers rather than self-reports. Every employer sponsoring an H-1B worker must disclose the wage to the Department of Labor, under penalty of law. The trade-off is coverage: it skews toward larger employers and major metros, so treat these numbers as a conservative floor for the US market.
How current is this data?
This edition covers determinations issued October 1, 2025 through March 31, 2026 — the Department of Labor's fiscal year 2026 through its second quarter, published in May 2026. The salary page always shows the newest available quarter.