For engineers and founders
What AI labs pay a Member of Technical Staff
The same title pays about $315,000 in base at the AI labs and $180,000 everywhere else. What 1,813 wage filings show, lab by lab
AI labs pay a Member of Technical Staff a median base salary of about $315,000, according to 314 certified H-1B wage filings from OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI and other labs in fiscal 2024 and 2025. The same title at other companies, mostly established hardware and software firms, has a median of $180,000. Base salary is only part of the package at the labs, where equity can be a large share of the total.
Member of Technical Staff is a title that hides the level on purpose. What does Member of Technical Staff mean covers where it came from. Because the title says nothing about pay, we looked at what companies actually commit to, which is the base wage in the Labor Condition Applications employers file for H-1B hires. Across fiscal 2024 and 2025 there are 1,813 certified, full-time filings with the title, from 215 employers.
The labs
- OpenAI. Median $325,000, middle half $255,000 to $380,000, across 129 filings.
- Anthropic. Median $320,000, middle half $300,000 to $340,000, across 116 filings.
- xAI. Median $277,500, middle half $229,604 to $345,000, across 24 filings.
- Cohere. Median $240,000, middle half $229,500 to $267,500, across 14 filings.
- Perplexity. Median $206,315, middle half $155,605 to $215,197, across 13 filings.
Thinking Machines Lab filed 9, with a median of $450,000. That’s the highest in the data, though nine filings is too few to read much into. Together, the labs we could identify filed 314, with a median of $315,000.
Everywhere else
The other 1,499 filings have a median of $180,000. Most come from companies where Member of Technical Staff is an ordinary engineering level, such as Pure Storage, Nutanix and AT&T. Read an MTS offer by the company and the scope of the role, since the title alone says little about pay.
What the base leaves out
These are base salaries. At the labs, equity grants, refreshes and bonuses can be a large share of the total, and none of that appears in a filing. The filings also cover only engineers sponsored for H-1B visas, so treat the medians as a floor.
Reading an MTS offer
Ask what level the role maps to internally, what the equity is worth at the latest price, and how refreshes work. A Member of Technical Staff offer from a lab at $300,000 base and one from an established hardware company at $180,000 are different jobs that happen to share a title.
Common questions
- How much does a Member of Technical Staff make at OpenAI or Anthropic?
- In certified US wage filings for fiscal 2024 and 2025, the median base salary for the title was $325,000 at OpenAI and $320,000 at Anthropic. Equity and bonuses come on top.
- Why do Member of Technical Staff salaries vary so much?
- The title is used both by AI labs and by established companies where it is an ordinary engineering level. Across 1,813 filings the lab median is about $315,000 and the median elsewhere is $180,000.
- Does Member of Technical Staff pay more than a named-level title?
- It depends on the employer more than the title. At AI labs it carries some of the highest base salaries in the filings, and at other companies it pays like a regular senior engineering role.