Salaries / AI Research

AI Research Salaries

Live base-salary benchmarks from open roles at ai research companies building the future.

1,761 openings with posted pay · Updated Sep 5, 2026

Median base salary

$288k

Posted range midpoint

Typical range

$220k–$350k

25th to 75th percentile

Openings with pay

1,761

61% of 2,878 live openings

Companies disclosing

20

From their own postings

Annual base salary in USD. Equity and bonus excluded.

Highest-paying live openings

Sorted by posted range
1
Research Engineer, Chip Design RL (Reinforcement Learning)

Anthropic · San Francisco, CA · Senior

$500k–$850k
2
Research Engineer, Computer Use

Anthropic · San Francisco, CA · Senior

$500k–$850k
3
Engineering Manager, ML Acceleration

Anthropic · San Francisco, CA · Manager

$500k–$850k
4
Research Engineer, Universes

Anthropic · San Francisco, CA · Senior

$500k–$850k
5
Research Engineer, Machine Learning (RL Velocity)

Anthropic · San Francisco, CA · Senior

$500k–$850k
6
Research Engineer, Code RL (Reinforcement Learning)

Anthropic · San Francisco, CA · Senior

$500k–$850k
7
Research Engineer, RL Engineering

Anthropic · San Francisco, CA · Mid-Level

$500k–$850k
8
Data Infrastructure Engineer, Pre-training

Anthropic · San Francisco, CA · Staff / Principal

$500k–$850k
View all 1,761 openings →

Methodology

BuildList pulls salary ranges from company applicant tracking systems hourly. Nothing is self-reported or estimated.

Non-USD pay is converted to USD, and hourly, weekly, and monthly pay is annualized. Figures are medians and quartiles of each posting's range midpoint, weighted by currently open roles.

Base salary only. Equity and bonus are excluded. Groups with fewer than 30 salaried openings are withheld.

Browse the live openings behind these benchmarks.

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