# AI engineer salary: $197,000–$269,300 a year

Every number below comes from 258 tracked live postings whose title matches "ai engineer". No surveys, no self-reports — listed salaries only, in US dollars.

Measured September 2026 · n=106 US postings with salary.

## Findings

- The median ai engineer posting offers $197,000–$269,300 a year (n=106).
- 62% of the 258 live postings matching "ai engineer" are remote.
- Level 4 AI engineers (building AI systems) list $200,000–$280,000, vs $184,000–$234,000 at Level 1.

## Median salary by seniority (USD / year)

| Segment | US postings with salary | Median min–max / year |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Intern | 0 | not enough data |
| Junior | 0 | not enough data |
| Mid-level | 19 | $162,000–$225,000 |
| Senior | 47 | $184,000–$250,000 |
| Lead | 22 | $234,500–$312,500 |

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

| Segment | US postings with salary | Median min–max / year |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Remote | 66 | $200,000–$278,000 |
| On-site / hybrid | 40 | $181,000–$251,500 |

## Companies hiring AI engineers

- [OpenAI](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/openai) (35)
- [NVIDIA](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/nvidia) (13)
- [Airwallex](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/airwallex) (9)
- [Cloudera](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/cloudera) (9)
- [Anthropic](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/anthropic) (8)
- [GitLab](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/gitlab) (8)
- [ClickUp](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/clickup) (7)
- [Databricks](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/databricks) (7)

## Method

US-dollar postings whose title contains "ai engineer", with both salary bounds listed. This page exists because 106 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: postings at tech companies tracked by Level. Not the whole labor market — do not cite as a national average.

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

## AI engineer salary questions, answered from the data

**What is the median ai engineer salary?**

Across 106 live US postings for AI engineers with a listed USD salary, measured September 2026, the median offer is $197,000–$269,300 a year. This is the tracked catalog, not the whole labor market.

**How many AI engineers jobs are remote?**

62% of the 106 live postings are marked remote by the employer, measured September 2026.

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

In this sample, 168 postings are Level 4 (building AI systems) and 14 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/role/ai-engineer