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← Salary Report · all roles
Q2 2026 EDITION · UPDATED QUARTERLY

AI Engineer

The typical offer now stands at $170,000 — up 8.1% on the year.

Median base salary
$170,000
from 203 offers analyzed
Vs a year ago
▲ +8.1%
tech-wide: +2.4%
Demand
i
This role’s share of all tech offers employers filed, compared with the same quarter a year ago.
▲ +246.4%
share of offers vs a year ago
Highest-paying city
SF Bay Area, CA
median $201,100 there
01Median by quarter
Q4 ’24 — Q2 ’26
The middle half of offers, on a rolling twelve-month basis.
$100K$150KTHIS QUARTERQ4 ’24$147,500Q1 ’25$150,000Q2 ’25$150,000Q3 ’25$135,000Q4 ’25$136,300Q1 ’26$140,000Q2 ’26$146,300$146,300MEDIAN+$6,300 vs Q1$188K$113K
02By level
typical range
Where each seniority level typically lands.
03Where offers land
this quarter
MEDIAN$119K$170K$255K
Where does your pay sit?
Median$170,000
Middle half of offers$132,000 – $210,000
Top tenthover $252,300
Top 5%over $270,000
04Top cities
median
05Top employers
median
06Pay growth by role
ML Engineer+10.1%
AI Engineer+8.1%
Mobile Engineer+6.1%
QA / SDET+1.1%
DevOps / SRE-1.2%
Security Engineer-1.5%
Data Engineer-2.0%
Software Engineer-2.1%
Data Scientist-2.6%
LLM / GenAI Engineer-3.1%
Frontend Engineer-3.7%
Platform / Cloud-8.7%
Median base salary, change vs a year ago · same DOL filings
AI roles are the most in demand.
+10.1%
fastest pay growth this year
$184,300
highest median in this report
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Where these numbers come from

Every figure is a base salary a U.S. employer put on an official government filing with the Department of Labor (the wage records behind work-visa and green-card applications). These are real offers, not survey guesses. We take the low end of each stated range, so the numbers are conservative. Base pay only — equity and bonuses aren’t included. Full details ship with each quarterly edition.

TECH PAY REPORT · AYKOAINext edition · Q3 2026