# Research engineer salary: $231,000–$400,000 a year

Every number below comes from 172 tracked live postings whose title matches "research engineer". No surveys, no self-reports — listed salaries only, in US dollars.

Measured September 2026 · n=99 US postings with salary.

## Findings

- The median research engineer posting offers $231,000–$400,000 a year (n=99).
- 27.9% of the 172 live postings matching "research engineer" are remote.
- Level 4 research engineers (building AI systems) list $236,000–$400,000, vs $133,100–$210,600 at Level 1.

## Median salary by seniority (USD / year)

| Segment | US postings with salary | Median min–max / year |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Intern | 0 | not enough data |
| Junior | 1 | $140,000–$200,000 |
| Mid-level | 9 | $200,000–$400,000 |
| Senior | 34 | $200,000–$318,900 |
| Lead | 12 | $235,400–$360,000 |

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

| Segment | US postings with salary | Median min–max / year |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Remote | 24 | $270,000–$407,500 |
| On-site / hybrid | 75 | $224,000–$400,000 |

## Companies hiring research engineers

- [Anthropic](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/anthropic) (34)
- [NVIDIA](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/nvidia) (17)
- [OpenAI](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/openai) (14)
- [Helsing](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/helsing) (9)
- [Elastic](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/elastic) (7)
- [Applied Intuition](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/applied-intuition) (6)
- [Decagon](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/decagon) (6)
- [Synthesia](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/synthesia) (5)

## Method

US-dollar postings whose title contains "research engineer", with both salary bounds listed. This page exists because 99 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 Not the whole labor market — do not cite as a national average.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.

## Research engineer salary questions, answered from the data

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

Across 99 live US postings for research engineers with a listed USD salary, measured September 2026, the median offer is $231,000–$400,000 a year. This is the tracked catalog, not the whole labor market.

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

27.9% of the 99 live postings are marked remote by the employer, measured September 2026.

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

In this sample, 154 postings are Level 4 (building AI systems) and 9 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/research-engineer