AI engineer salary in 2026

Where the number comes from

Each figure comes from the Labor Condition Applications employers file with the US Department of Labor for a worker on an H-1B, H-1B1 or E-3 visa. A filing names the job title, the worksite and the salary the company commits to pay. We count certified, full-time filings with a yearly salary, decided from July 2025 to June 2026, and use the middle of the range where a range is filed. These are the same filings and title rules as the Zelcast Pay Index, where the method is set out in full.

The title rule takes AI engineer and its common variants, such as AI Software Engineer (38 filings), Applied AI Engineer (23) and Artificial Intelligence Engineer (16), and leaves out senior, staff, lead, manager and founding titles. AI Engineer itself was on 362 of the 534.

The numbers

• All AI engineers. Median $134,971, middle half $109,806 to $172,802, across 534 filings, from 362 employers.
• California. Median $186,780, middle half $160,000 to $222,942, across 122 filings.
• Texas. Median $113,000, middle half $96,034 to $134,971, across 105 filings.
• New York. Median $185,000, middle half $153,446 to $216,431, across 47 filings.
• San Francisco. Median $202,851, middle half $172,276 to $225,000, across 46 filings.
• New York City. Median $190,000, middle half $154,746 to $222,862, across 45 filings.

Why the national median sits far below San Francisco

Many kinds of employer use the title. No employer filed more than 8 of the 534 filings. AI startups such as Distyl AI (8, median $205,000), Eudia (5, median $197,741) and Defaked (5, median $265,000) file it at medians near $200,000 and above. In Texas, where the median was $113,000, the filers include IT consulting and staffing firms such as V-Soft Consulting and Ascendion. A national median across both describes neither, so read the city figures when you compare an offer.

Filings for the title grew from 199 to 534 in a year, faster than any engineering title except forward deployed engineer in the Zelcast Pay Index. What an AI engineer does covers the job itself.

What companies advertise

Separately, we collected the salary ranges on job postings open on October 20, 2026, from about 1,700 company job boards on Greenhouse, Ashby and Lever, found from Zelcast’s lists of companies, and from YC’s company jobs pages. Across the 76 companies posting AI engineer roles with a range, the median company put the middle of its range at $200,000, from 107 postings. Postings show what companies were asking for on that day, at a different set of employers from the filings, so the two figures are reported apart.

What the data can and can’t tell you

These are base salaries only, so they leave out equity, bonuses and benefits. They cover workers on these visas, who are a large share of engineers at many US tech companies but not all of them. A filing states what an employer commits to pay for a role when it files, and it does not record a hire. Pay can change after it.

How to use it

If you’re hiring an AI engineer in San Francisco, compare with the $202,851 city median, the figure other employers there committed to. If you’re weighing an offer, compare it with the figure for your city, and ask what the job ships, because the title covers very different work from one employer to the next.