# Research salary: $200,000–$328,300 a year

Every number below comes from 531 tracked live research postings. No surveys, no self-reports — listed salaries only, in US dollars.

Measured September 2026 · n=284 US postings with salary.

## Findings

- The median research posting offers $200,000–$328,300 a year (n=284, USD).
- 28.4% of the 531 live research postings are remote.
- The middle half of postings (25th–75th percentile) top out between $264,500–$423,000 a year — the median alone hides how wide that spread is.
- Level 4 research roles (building AI systems) list $208,150–$350,000, vs $155,000–$210,600 at Level 1.

## Median salary by seniority (USD / year)

| Segment | US postings with salary | Median min–max / year |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Intern | 3 | $100,000–$100,000 |
| Junior | 4 | $172,000–$225,000 |
| Mid-level | 30 | $180,000–$277,556 |
| Senior | 104 | $192,000–$304,750 |
| Lead | 44 | $220,400–$339,200 |

## Remote vs on-site (USD / year)

| Segment | US postings with salary | Median min–max / year |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Remote | 67 | $200,000–$328,300 |
| On-site / hybrid | 217 | $200,000–$331,200 |

## Building AI vs working around it

| Segment | US postings with salary | Median min–max / year |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Level 4 — Build AI systems | 234 | $208,150–$350,000 |
| Level 1 — Work around AI | 33 | $155,000–$210,600 |

## Companies hiring research roles

- [NVIDIA](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/nvidia) (81)
- [Anthropic](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/anthropic) (48)
- [OpenAI](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/openai) (40)
- [Adobe](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/adobe) (21)
- [Applied Intuition](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/applied-intuition) (16)
- [Scale AI](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/scale-ai) (14)
- [Together AI](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/together-ai) (11)
- [Datadog](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/datadog) (10)

## Method

US-dollar postings with both salary bounds listed. This page exists because 284 such postings clear the 50-posting floor Level requires before publishing a dedicated salary page — below that, the median moves too much between ingestion cycles to be a citable number.

Sample: research postings at tech companies tracked by Level (531 live postings in this category on the measured date). Not the whole labor market — do not cite as a national average.

All amounts are USD per year. Every median and quartile above excludes hourly-rate postings (a listed maximum under $1,000, almost always an hourly rate, not a salary) and mid-range postings that are neither clearly hourly nor clearly annual (maximum between $1,000 and $10,000) — mixing either into an annual median would understate the real number. The middle 50% of postings top out between $264,500–$423,000 (25th–75th percentile).

Refreshed automatically; this edition is measured September 2026. Small-n slices move a lot — read the n column first.

## Research salary questions, answered from the data

**What is the median research salary?**

Across 284 live US postings for research roles with a listed USD salary, measured September 2026, the median offer is $200,000–$328,300 a year. This is the tracked catalog, not the whole labor market.

**How many research roles jobs are remote?**

28.4% of the 284 live postings are marked remote by the employer, measured September 2026.

**Does the AI level of the job change the pay?**

In this sample, 429 postings are Level 4 (building AI systems) and 73 are Level 1 (AI is not the work). See the AI level breakdown below for the median in each band. Measured September 2026.

Source: https://jobsbylevel.com/salaries/research