What AI labs pay engineers in 2026

Where the numbers come 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 labs here are OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Thinking Machines Lab, Reflection AI and Cohere. Cohere means Cohere US. Cohere Health is a separate company and is left out. Engineering and research titles are any title with engineer, engineering, developer, technical staff or programmer in it, plus research, applied, data and machine learning scientists, so business, finance and operations roles are left out.

What the labs file

• OpenAI. 158 engineering and research filings, median $325,000, middle half $255,000 to $380,000. A salary range on 16% of them.
• Anthropic. 195 engineering and research filings, median $281,756, middle half $263,428 to $340,000. A salary range on 94% of them.
• xAI. 48 engineering and research filings, median $331,128, middle half $290,403 to $360,000. A salary range on 38% of them.
• Thinking Machines Lab. 28 engineering and research filings, too few to report a median on their own.
• Reflection AI. 29 engineering and research filings, too few to report a median on their own.
• Cohere. 10 engineering and research filings, too few to report a median on their own.

Most lab filings carry the title Member of Technical Staff, from 54% at OpenAI to all of them at Thinking Machines Lab. OpenAI adds a team name, such as Software Engineer (44 filings), Hardware Engineering (22) or Data Science (17), and uses the bare title on 6 of its 140. Anthropic uses the bare title on 90 of its 184 Member of Technical Staff filings.

Anthropic files a salary range on 94% of these filings, and 85 of the 162 ranges on its Member of Technical Staff filings start at the prevailing wage for the job and area. Labor Department rules require an H-1B employer to pay at least the higher of that prevailing wage and the wage it pays similar workers, so a range that starts there has its lower bound set by the rule. That pulls Anthropic’s lower bounds down. What AI labs pay a Member of Technical Staff shows each lab’s lower bound, midpoint and upper bound.

The labs’ own job postings are a separate source, with a different date and a different mix of roles, and they are left out here.

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 weighing a lab offer, ask where your base sits in the range the lab files for the role, and ask for any equity in writing with its vesting terms. If you’re hiring against the labs, the medians above are what they committed to in base salary for engineers and researchers.