# Research engineer salary: $230,000–$400,000 a year

Every number below comes from 287 tracked live postings whose title matches "research engineer". No surveys, no self-reports. Listed salaries only, in US dollars.

Measured November 2026 · n=152 US postings with salary.

## Findings

- The median research engineer posting offers $230,000–$400,000 a year (n=152).
- 27.9% of the 287 live postings matching "research engineer" are remote.
- Builds AI (AI Level 4) research engineers list $230,000–$400,000, vs $133,100–$151,710 at Little AI (AI Level 1).

## Median salary by seniority (USD / year)

| Segment | US postings with salary | Median min–max / year |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Intern | 5 | $300,000–$300,000 |
| Junior | 9 | $126,000–$423,000 |
| Mid-level | 16 | $188,650–$400,000 |
| Senior | 61 | $204,400–$350,000 |
| Lead | 14 | $247,988–$365,382 |

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

| Segment | US postings with salary | Median min–max / year |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Remote | 40 | $230,000–$447,500 |
| On-site / hybrid | 112 | $220,400–$400,000 |

## Companies hiring research engineers

- [Anthropic](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/anthropic) (34)
- [Mistral AI](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/mistral-ai) (20)
- [OpenAI](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/openai) (16)
- [NVIDIA](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/nvidia) (14)
- [Harvey](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/harvey) (12)
- [Jump Trading](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/jump-trading) (8)
- [Turing](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/turing) (8)
- [Helsing](https://jobsbylevel.com/companies/helsing) (7)

## Method

US-dollar postings whose title contains "research engineer", with both salary bounds listed. This page exists because 152 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 Do not cite as a national average.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 November 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 152 live US postings for research engineers with a listed USD salary, measured November 2026, the median offer is $230,000–$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 152 live postings are marked remote by the employer, measured November 2026.

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

In this sample, 247 postings build AI and 27 involve little AI. See the level breakdown below for the median at each level. Measured November 2026.

Source: https://jobsbylevel.com/salaries/role/research-engineer

## Cite this page

Level. https://jobsbylevel.com/salaries/role/research-engineer. Measured November 2026.

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