AI Engineer Salary: Full Guide by Role, Level and Location

AI engineering is now one of the highest-compensated software disciplines in the US, but salary data varies by tens of thousands of dollars depending on which salary aggregator you check. That’s because the same title presupposes very different jobs. “AI engineer” appears on postings for LLM work, MLOps, model training, and AI security, and the same title on a different posting can mean a $50,000 difference in what you pay.

This guide breaks the salary numbers down by role, seniority level, specialization, and location. Next, it shows what one AI engineer costs an employer when you add benefits, equity, and recruiting time to base pay.

What is the Average AI Engineer Salary in the US in 2026?

The average AI engineer salary in the US falls between $134,000 and $193,000 in annual base pay in 2026, depending on the source and the specific role. Most averages land near $180,000.

Built In reports an average base salary of $185,000. Robert Half’s 2026 Salary Guide puts starting base pay for AI and ML engineers between $134,000 and $193,000. Both figures cover base salary only, so bonus, equity, and employer costs come on top.

Salary numbers vary by source because each one counts different aspects. Glassdoor, for instance, puts median total pay at $145,000, lower than the base figures above, because it draws on self-reported salaries from companies of every size rather than posted ranges at funded tech employers.

Base pay is only part of what you will offer. Built In records an average cash bonus of $26,000 on top of base. A $180,000 salary can therefore mean anything from $200,000 to well past $400,000 in total compensation depending on the employer.

AI Engineer Salary by Experience Level

Seniority accounts for more of the difference in AI engineer base pay than any other factor. Salaries roughly double between a first hire and a senior engineer.

Junior AI Engineer Salary (0–2 Years)

Junior AI engineers in the US earn between $80,000 and $108,000 in annual base pay. Salary.com prices the first two AI engineer levels at $93,000 and $108,000. At the same time, Built In gives an average of $80,000 for engineers with under one year of experience.

Mid-Level AI Engineer Salary (3–5 Years)

Base pay at this level falls between $122,000 and $170,000. Salary.com puts mid-level AI engineers at $122,000 to $159,000, and Built In identifies $160,000 to $170,000 as the most common base salary band across all AI engineers.

Senior AI Engineer Salary (6+ Years)

Senior base pay falls between $176,000 and $194,000. Salary.com puts AI engineer at $176,000, rising to $197,000 at lead level.

AI Engineer Salary by Role: AI Software, ML, and Security Engineers Compared

AI software engineer salary, AI ML engineer salary, and AI security engineer salary differ by skill requirements and market demands.

AI Software Engineer Salary

The AI software engineering salary averages $169,000 per year in the US according to Glassdoor 2026 data, with top earners reaching $249,000. The typical total pay range is $140,000-$208,000 annually. The base-pay figures are lower. Salary.com gives $128,000 for the role, and Payscale reports $108,000.

These engineers build AI-powered applications, integrate foundation models into production systems, and ship AI features to end users. The role commands a premium over general software engineering. AI-specific skills add $45,000 in annual base pay over equivalent non-AI software engineering roles at the same experience level, according to aggregated Built In data.

AI ML Engineer Salary

Glassdoor puts the average salary at $179,000, with top earners at $268,000 and most engineers between $146,000 and $222,000. Those numbers cover total pay. Robert Half sets starting base pay between $134,000 and $193,000.

ML engineers build and train the models. They design training pipelines, improve model performance, and release research prototypes into production. PyTorch, model evaluation, and MLOps tooling are the standard requirements, and employers pay above general AI software engineering rates for them.

AI Security Engineer Salary

Glassdoor reports $188,000 in total pay for AI security engineers. Built In shows base pay at $130,000, and $167,000 for engineers with seven or more years of experience.

AI security engineers protect models from prompt injection, model poisoning, and data leakage. Companies in banking, healthcare, and other regulated industries drive the demand for the role because they face the same legal exposure from a model that leaks customer data as from a breached database.

What’s the AI Engineer Pay by Specialization?

The averages below are Glassdoor total pay estimates, which combine base salary with bonus, equity, and other additional pay. Accessed August 2026.

GenAI Engineer Salary

GenAI engineers typically earn $208,000 annually, with top performers clearing $270,000. Within this specialization, engineers build and ship generative AI applications, including multimodal systems, agentic workflows, and model orchestration pipelines.

Computer Vision and NLP Engineer Salary

The total pay for computer vision engineers is $132,000 to $213,000, averaging $166,000. For NLP roles, plan your hiring budget from $138,000 to $200,000. Both roles are now hired well outside tech. Manufacturers and hospitals recruit computer vision engineers, and legal and financial firms hire NLP engineers, which means you compete for the same shortlist as employers in other industries.

MLOps Engineer Salary

MLOps engineers cost $161,000 in total pay on average, with most positions between $132,000 and $199,000. They deploy models in containers on Kubernetes, run automated retraining pipelines, and work with MLflow, SageMaker, or Vertex AI.

LLM Engineer Salary

Plan on spending between $125,000 and $208,000 for an LLM engineer, with $166,000 as the midpoint. Across advertised openings at ZipRecruiter, the average drops to $112,000. LLM engineers fine-tune foundation models, build retrieval-augmented generation systems, and deploy inference infrastructure.

AI Engineer Salary by Location: Top US Cities and Remote Roles

Location remains one of the strongest variables in AI engineer salary in the US. Coastal tech hubs like San Francisco and New York pay 20% to 33% above the national average, according to Built In’s city-level figures.

San Francisco

San Francisco pays the highest AI software engineer salary of any US market. Built In puts the average base at $246,000. Glassdoor gives $223,000 in total pay for the city, with most offers between $179,000 and $283,000.

That base exceeds the national average of $185,000 by about $61,000, a 33% premium for the same title. Bonus practice in the city varies widely by employer, so budget the base as your fixed benchmark and treat cash bonus as a separate negotiation line rather than a predictable add-on.

New York City

New York follows San Francisco as the second most expensive place to hire AI engineers. Average base salaries in the city are $223,000. New York employers pay $63,000 more for an AI specialist than for a software engineer, $223,000 against $160,000.

Seattle

Hiring an AI engineer in Seattle costs you $180,000 in salary on average, close to the national figure. Amazon and Microsoft hire from the same local pool, so you compete against both to place local candidates. Washington charges no state income tax, which works in your favor, since candidates take home more of the offer than in California or New York.

Austin and Other Mid-Tier Markets

Employers hiring in Austin pay $92,000 for entry-level and $174,000 for senior positions. Total compensation averages $144,000, with most offers between $117,000 and $181,000. In Boston, Chicago, and Washington, DC, salary levels are between Austin and the coastal markets. Hospitals, biotech companies, defense contractors, and federal agencies drive AI salaries in these markets more than tech companies do.

Remote AI Engineer Salary

Remote AI engineers earn $180,000 on average, or $203,000 once bonus is counted. Seven years of experience raises that to $191,000. That is the US average, so the savings from hiring remotely are smaller than most companies expect.

What Drives AI Engineer Salaries Higher Than Any Other Tech Role?

Employers pay AI engineers more than general software developers. Robert Half projects AI/ML engineer pay growing 4.4% in 2026 against 1.6% across tech roles.

Here’s why that happens:

• Talent scarcity. The global AI talent pool is undersupplied at the seniority levels above entry. ManpowerGroup’s 2026 survey of more than 39,000 employers found AI skills are now the hardest to source, ahead of engineering and IT categories.
• Cross-industry demand. Tech companies no longer hire AI engineers alone. Healthcare, finance, manufacturing, and retail bid for the same candidates.
• The demand for AI deployment skills. Dice found AI infrastructure, observability, and maintainability among the fastest-growing requirements of 2026. Those skills come from production experience, which most candidates don’t have. Employers raise offers to reach the ones with a track record of shipping and maintaining models in live environments.
• Competition from frontier labs. Levels.fyi puts median total compensation for an OpenAI software engineer near $874,000. Senior candidates read those numbers even when they never interview there, so expect the conversation to start above your benchmark.

What Does It Really Cost to Hire an AI Engineer in 2026 and Beyond?

Base salary on a job posting doesn’t equal the true cost of a new AI engineering hire. You must factor in payroll taxes, insurance, retirement contributions, bonus, and recruiting costs.

Fully Loaded Employer Cost vs. Base Salary

Starting from the national average of $185,000, the fully loaded annual cost of an in-house AI engineering hire exceeds $275,000. BLS data shows benefits accounting for about 30% of total employer compensation cost, roughly 43% on top of wages, and the share rises with the size of the package, from about 18% at the 10th wage percentile to 33% at the 90th.

Here’s what you pay for beyond the salary:

• Legally required benefits. Social security, medicare, and unemployment insurance.
• Insurance. Health, life, and short- and long-term disability.
• Retirement and savings. 401(k) matching, pension plans, and profit-sharing.
• Paid leave. Vacation, holidays, sick, and personal days.
• Supplemental pay. Bonuses, overtime, and on-call pay.

Recruiting and overhead costs belong in the hiring budget, too. Filling an AI role takes 89 days on average, according to TechHiringCost. That means your team carries the workload for three months before the new hire starts. You also pay for cloud compute, MLOps platforms, and the monitoring tools each engineer works with.

Alternatives: Offshore and Outsourced AI Development

A dedicated offshore team gives you the same engineering capacity without the costs listed above. You engage specialists under contract at a fixed rate, so payroll taxes, insurance, retirement contributions, and paid leave stay off your budget.

Geomotiv builds and operates dedicated development teams across many industries. We also deliver complete projects through our offshore development services, covering architecture, delivery, and maintenance. The specializations include AdTech, OTT advertising, and retail media, and we build enterprise software in other domains as well.

Our company hires across 180+ countries where engineering rates are lower than in the US. You pay one hourly or monthly rate, and Geomotiv handles employment, benefits, and equipment on our side of the contract. We match AI engineers from a pool of pre-screened candidates, and they start working on your AI development project in about two weeks. There is no search to run and no recruiter fee to pay, because the screening is already done.

Note: In-house hiring still makes sense in some cases. Keep AI engineers on your payroll when the models are your intellectual property, when the role carries architectural authority over systems you will run for years, or when compliance requires your own employees to handle the data. If you need to enable AI capabilities, such as deploying models, building inference pipelines, or integrating AI into existing systems, a dedicated external team gets it done without the fully loaded price tag.

Final Word

AI engineer salary data looks hard to use for budget planning. The ranges make sense once you fix the seniority, specialization, and location you are hiring for:

• A first hire costs about $80,000 in base pay, a senior engineer about $194,000.
• Specializations land between $160,000 and $208,000 in total pay, which includes bonus and equity.
• You pay 20% to 33% more in San Francisco or New York, and other markets price close to the national average.

For companies hiring in 2026, the takeaway is to budget against fully loaded costs, not base salary. One in-house AI engineer costs you more than $275,000 a year once payroll taxes, insurance, retirement, paid leave, and bonus are counted.

If that number does not fit your budget, consider other contract options. Offshore development or a remote dedicated team supplies AI engineers at a fixed rate.