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 16 categories with enough live, USD-priced postings to compare honestly.
The number this article rests on: 22,602 of 45,044 live USD postings publish a maximum of $200,000 or more, the highest salary threshold this catalogue defines. Measured November 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 build AI systems rather than just work near it should weight the share of jobs that build AI instead. Mixing all three into one number 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 $250,000 on 870 postings, legal at $240,000 on 503 postings, and product at $235,000 on 2,057 postings. Jobs that build AI sit at $264,500 median maximum on 3,419 USD postings. Measured November 2026.
- Research: median maximum $250,000, median floor $172,400, on 870 USD postings.
- Legal: median maximum $240,000, median floor $177,000, on 503 USD postings.
- Product: median maximum $235,000, median floor $168,000, on 2,057 USD postings.
Which AI jobs are most remote?
By share of postings marked remote, the top three categories are data annotation & ai training at 94.9% of 39 postings, customer support at 33.3% of 1,642 postings, and sales at 29.2% of 18,103 postings. Across the whole catalogue, 29,854 of 182,590 live jobs (16.4%) are remote, read from each posting's location field. Measured November 2026.
Which AI jobs are most likely to mean building AI?
By share of postings that build AI, the top three categories are research at 63.9% of 1,804 postings, data at 25.1% of 6,500 postings, and software engineering at 9.1% of 39,657 postings. Across every category, 7,590 of 182,590 live jobs build AI. Measured November 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 salary threshold it defines: 22,602 of 45,044 USD postings clear that bar, a 50.2% share. Above that line, no posting is confirmed or ruled out here; the data stops naming a figure. Measured November 2026.
What jobs pay $1,000,000 per year?
The same honest gap applies. The best-documented category by median maximum is research at $250,000, and pay for jobs that build AI overall sits at $264,500 median maximum on 3,419 postings. Seven-figure salaries are not a figure any live posting in this catalogue publishes. Measured November 2026.
How rare is a $200,000 salary?
Not rare, measured directly rather than guessed at. 22,602 of 45,044 live USD postings publish a maximum of $200,000 or more, a 50.2% 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 November 2026.
The jobs right now
Live postings that clear the $200,000 salary threshold, newest first, generated from the catalogue and refreshed every six hours.
