Search Engineer Salary

Based on 268 Search listings with published compensation (722 total jobs)

$271k
Average
$207k
25th %ile
$240k
Median
$300k
75th %ile

Search engineer salaries span a wide range depending on experience level, company size, and location. Roles at the 75th percentile ($300k) typically go to senior and lead engineers at frontier AI labs, well-funded startups, and FAANG-tier teams shipping Search features in production. Entry-level and mid-level Search roles cluster around the 25th percentile ($207k).

Compensation figures below are computed from 268 AI Dev Jobs listings with published salary ranges — a subset of the 722 total open Search roles. Ranges reflect base salary in USD/year; total comp (equity, bonus, signing) is typically 1.3–2× base at top-paying companies. Remote roles increasingly match in-office rates for this skill.

By Experience Level

senior
245 jobs
$233k avg
mid
199 jobs
$176k avg
lead
187 jobs
$291k avg
principal
53 jobs
$446k avg
junior
38 jobs
$219k avg

Top Paying Companies for Search

Search Jobs by City

San Francisco, CA
210 jobs
$319k avg
New York, NY
52 jobs
$257k avg
London, UK
48 jobs
$202k avg
Toronto, Canada
37 jobs
$216k avg
Paris, France
25 jobs
Remote (US)
25 jobs
$223k avg
Mountain View, CA
22 jobs
$222k avg
Remote
20 jobs
$197k avg
Canada
17 jobs
$173k avg
Bangalore, India
15 jobs

How this data is collected

AI Dev Jobs scrapes curated job feeds (Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever) from 538 ATS sources across 489 AI companies daily. Listings are filtered for AI/ML relevance; generalist roles are excluded. Salary figures come directly from the publicly posted compensation ranges on each listing — we do not estimate or impute. If a role doesn't publish a salary, it is excluded from these statistics but still appears in the job listings.

Data is refreshed every 24 hours. The percentile breakdowns above (p25, p50 median, p75) are computed over the midpoint of each published range. Experience level percentiles use the same midpoint method, grouped by the experience_level field on the listing. City-level figures require at least 3 open roles in that city for Search.

Raw data available via the REST API or MCP server.

Browse 722 Search Jobs

See all Search roles with salary data and apply links.

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