What is the average AI engineer salary in 2026?

Based on 31 real job listings from companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, and Cursor, the average AI engineer salary in 2026 is $245k. The median is $240k, with the middle 50% earning between $217k and $275k.

AI Developer Salary Report 2026

Q: Which AI specializations pay the most?

AI safety and alignment roles pay the highest at ~$394k average, followed by research roles (~$370k), reinforcement learning (~$354k), and fine-tuning specialists (~$311k). LLM engineers average $283k.

Q: Do remote AI jobs pay less than onsite?

Yes, remote AI roles average $201k while onsite roles average $280k and hybrid roles average $341k. However, remote roles often come from a broader range of companies, while the highest-paying onsite roles are concentrated at top-tier labs like Anthropic and OpenAI.

Q: Which companies pay AI engineers the most?

Anthropic leads at $406k average across 78 roles, followed by OpenAI ($360k), Cognition AI ($328k), Cursor ($285k), and Databricks ($266k). These figures include base salary and may not reflect total compensation with equity.

Real salary data from 31 job listings across 20 AI companies

Last updated: April 12, 2026 · Source: aidevboard.com job listings

What do AI engineers earn in 2026?

$245k

Average

$240k

Median

$217k–$275k

Middle 50%

Jobs with salary

Which AI specializations pay the most?

Specialization	Avg Salary	Jobs
transformers	$289k	6
pytorch	$265k	11
cuda	$263k	3
distributed-systems	$263k	3
go	$258k	4
developer-tools	$253k	3
infrastructure	$248k	4
fine-tuning	$248k	3
mlops	$245k	4
agents	$245k	6
python	$244k	24
llm	$240k	16
kubernetes	$235k	3
rag	$235k	4
react	$220k	5

Do remote AI jobs pay less than onsite?

Workplace	Avg Salary	Jobs
onsite	$245k	31

Which companies pay AI engineers the most?

Company	Avg Salary	Roles
Cognition AI	$327k	2
Liquid AI	$300k	1
Etched	$300k	1
Cursor	$285k	2
Modal	$275k	1
Scale AI	$272k	2
Anthropic	$268k	3
Mistral AI	$265k	1
Perplexity	$257k	2
Deepgram	$250k	1

AI Engineer Salary Distribution

Under $100k

$100k–$150k

$150k–$200k

$200k–$250k

$250k–$300k

$300k+

Browse All 972 AI Jobs

Data sourced from real job listings on aidevboard.com. Updated daily via automated scraping of Ashby, Greenhouse, and Lever career APIs.

Methodology

This report analyzes 31 job listings with published salary data out of 972 total active AI/ML positions on AI Dev Board. Salary data is extracted from structured fields and job descriptions. All figures represent base salary in USD. Data is refreshed daily from company career pages via Ashby, Greenhouse, and Lever APIs. Companies represented: 20.