Free Access No Registration Updated: 2026-06-01

AI Engineer Career Market Report 2026

2,434 active jobs. 1,121 companies. Median salary $150K. Data from Greenhouse, Lever, Workday, Ashby, SmartRecruiters, Workable, and 14 additional ATS sources. Last computed: 2026-06-01.

2,434
Active Job Openings
1,121
Companies Hiring
$150K
Median Salary (US)
78%
With Salary Data

About This Report

AI Engineer is one of the fastest-evolving roles in tech — 100% of postings now require AI/LLM skills.

Greenhouse Lever Workday Ashby SmartRecruiters Workable + 14 more ATS sources

Salary: Extracted via NLP. Only USD $5K-$3M included. Skills: Named entity recognition, noise-filtered (generic soft skills excluded). Experience: Inferred from title + description. Coverage: 78% of positions include salary data.

Key Findings

Median salary: $150K in the US

Middle 50% of salaries range from $108K to $220K.

Remote roles pay 11% below the US national median

Remote positions in this field tend to be at companies with lower average pay scales, or reflect geographic salary adjustments.

AI/LLM is the most-demanded skill at 100%

Python demand rose +10.8pp — fastest-growing skill

Capitalone leads hiring with 71 open positions

Biggest salary jump: Lead → Staff (+$41K, +26%)

Salary increase: +$41K · Sample: Lead → Staff

AI automation risk: low (score 30/100)

Score: 30/100 · AI/LLM demand: 168% of postings

Week-over-week changes reflect dataset expansion, not market surge

Recent growth in tracked postings is from adding new data sources, not a one-week hiring boom. Interpret trend data with this in mind.

Salary by Experience Level

LevelJobsP25MedianP90
Senior129$90K$132K$209K
Staff74$172K$200K$270K
Mid-Level33$99K$122K$180K
Junior27$78K$102K$176K
Lead19$95K$159K$239K
Manager3$145K$150K$160K
Director3$94K$144K$193K

What jumps out

Lead → Staff: +$41K (26%) — the biggest single-step increase. The salary curve is back-loaded: the largest raises come at transitions where scope changes from executing tasks to owning outcomes, or from owning outcomes to shaping architecture across teams.

Salary by Country

CountryJobsMedianCurrency
United States217$160KUSD
Remote59$143KUSD
Canada15$111KUSD
United Kingdom7$146KGBP
India5$42KUSD

Work Mode

ModeShare
On-Site5.6%
Remote22.1%
Hybrid3.3%

~80% of postings do not specify work mode. Figures show only positions where it is explicitly stated.

Top Skills in Demand

AI/LLM
100%
Python
68%
AWS
36%
Azure
28%
CI/CD
26%
GCP
24%
LangChain
24%
Docker
21%
TypeScript
20%
PyTorch
18%
Kubernetes
16%
MLOps
16%

Skills on the Rise

Python ↑+10.8ppLlamaIndex ↑+10.0ppDevOps ↑+10.0ppJava ↑+9.6ppVector DB ↑+8.5pp

Top Companies Hiring

CompanyOpeningsShare
Capitalone712.9%
Capco271.1%
Sezzle261.1%
Boschgroup180.7%
Nvidia180.7%
Jack Jill External Ats180.7%
Bah150.6%
Mastercard130.5%

Top Countries by Job Volume

CountryJobs
United States782
Remote216
India167
United Kingdom115
Canada64
Singapore49
Germany37
Poland33

Education Requirements

LevelSharePositions
Associate Degree54.8%1,039
Master's Degree12.5%237
Bachelor's Degree6.1%115
PhD / Doctorate4.5%86

Certifications

All certifications below 1% threshold. Certifications carry minimal weight in this profession's hiring decisions.

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