Best AI jobs, ranked by real postings

Best is not one thing, so this page ranks AI jobs three ways, each on a named measure: median maximum salary, share of postings that are remote, and share of postings where AI is the core of the work rather than a tool. Every ranking below comes from 15 categories with enough live, USD-priced postings to compare honestly.

The number this article rests on: 7,407 of 10,606 live USD postings publish a maximum of $200,000 or more, the highest band this catalogue defines. Measured September 2026.

A ranking with no stated criterion is an opinion wearing a list. This one states three: pay, remote share, and how central AI is to the job, each computed from the live catalogue and re-measured every six hours. Categories with too few USD postings, or a salary too small to read as annual, are left out of the pay ranking entirely rather than guessed at.

None of the three rankings below claims to be the single truth about which AI job is "best." A reader chasing salary should weight the pay ranking; a reader who wants to work from anywhere should weight remote share; a reader who wants their day-to-day work to be building AI systems rather than adjacent to them should weight the Level 4 share instead. Mixing all three into one score would hide which criterion actually moved a given category to the top, so this page keeps them apart.

Which AI jobs pay the most?

By median maximum salary, on categories with a large enough USD sample to be citable, the best paid are research at $350,000 on 220 postings, legal at $265,000 on 165 postings, and product at $260,004 on 669 postings. Level 4 postings overall, where building AI is the job, sit at $246,750 median maximum on 385 USD postings. Measured September 2026.

1. Research: median maximum $350,000, median floor $220,000, on 220 USD postings.
2. Legal: median maximum $265,000, median floor $200,000, on 165 USD postings.
3. Product: median maximum $260,004, median floor $188,496, on 669 USD postings.

Which AI jobs are most remote?

By share of postings marked remote, the top three categories are content at 83.8% of 173 postings, education at 79.1% of 67 postings, and healthcare at 73.9% of 284 postings. Across the whole catalogue, 13,225 of 26,929 live jobs (49.1%) are remote, read from each posting's location field. Measured September 2026.

Which AI jobs are most likely to mean building AI?

By share of Level 4 postings, the top three categories are data at 10.7% of 1,259 postings, research at 10.0% of 430 postings, and software engineering at 4.8% of 7,783 postings. Across every category, 772 of 26,929 live jobs are Level 4. Measured September 2026.

This ranking measures where AI is the job itself, not where postings pay best or where the most of them are remote. A category can top this list while sitting well outside the top three on pay or on remote share, and that is not a contradiction; it means the category concentrates work that builds AI systems without also leading on the other two measures this page tracks.

What jobs pay $500,000 a year in the US?

None that this catalogue can point to. It reads the maximum a posting publishes and sorts it against $200,000, the highest band it defines: 7,407 of 10,606 USD postings clear that bar, a 69.8% share. Above that line, no posting is confirmed or ruled out here; the data stops naming a figure. Measured September 2026.

What jobs pay $1,000,000 per year?

The same honest gap applies. The best-documented category by median maximum is research at $350,000, and Level 4 pay overall sits at $246,750 median maximum on 385 postings. Seven-figure salaries are not a figure any live posting in this catalogue publishes. Measured September 2026.

How rare is a $200,000 salary?

Not rare, measured directly rather than guessed at. 7,407 of 10,606 live USD postings publish a maximum of $200,000 or more, a 69.8% share, and that is the one salary threshold this catalogue defines and tracks. Everything above it in this article is stated as unmeasured, not as a smaller number. Measured September 2026.

The jobs right now

Live postings that clear the $200,000 salary band, newest first, generated from the catalogue and refreshed every six hours.

Browse every Level 4 posting on the Level 4 page, or start from a category hub on the AI jobs index. The companion pages on AI engineer salary and remote AI jobs go deeper on the two rankings above.

Method

• Scope: live postings in the Level catalogue, ranked by median maximum USD salary, remote share, or Level 4 share. Pay ranking limited to categories with at least 20 USD postings and a median that reads as an annual salary.
• Sample: 26,929 live jobs, of which 11,953 publish a salary and 10,606 publish it in USD.
• Measured: September 2026, from the live catalogue at jobsbylevel.com, refreshed every six hours.
• Currency: USD only, no conversions. Medians are on the posted maximum unless stated.
• Not measured: equity, bonus, and non-USD offers are excluded from every salary figure; a posted range is not a guaranteed offer; nothing above $200,000 is confirmed or ruled out by this catalogue.