LLM engineer salary: what US job postings that ask for LLM and RAG skills pay
What US job postings that ask for LLM and RAG skills pay at senior, staff and principal level, which roles ask for them, and what related skills pay.
What does an LLM engineer job pay? Few employers use "LLM engineer" as a job title. In the Data Pay Index, titles like "LLM Engineer" or "GenAI Developer" count as AI engineer postings. So this answer looks at the skill instead: every data and AI posting that mentions LLMs or large language models, whatever the title says, plus postings that mention RAG (retrieval-augmented generation).
As of October 30, 2026, the index tracked 13,166 open data and AI postings at 3,276 companies. 4,575 of them mention LLMs (34.7%) and 1,718 mention RAG (13.0%).
Pay figures below use US postings in USD that list a pay range, seen since Oct 18, 2026, with each posting counted once. The number of postings with pay sits beside every figure.
The short answer
US postings that mention LLMs pay a $208,750 median (1,851 postings with pay). Senior: $195,050 (471). Staff or lead: $237,500 (380). Principal: $234,750 (102). Postings that mention RAG pay a $200,000 median (590).
LLM skill pay by level
| Level (from title) | Median pay (US) | Postings with pay |
|---|---|---|
| Senior | $195,050 | 471 |
| Staff / lead | $237,500 | 380 |
| Principal | $234,750 | 102 |
| Manager | $234,000 | 89 |
| Director+ | $248,500 | 69 |
| Level not stated | $200,000 | 692 |
| All levels | $208,750 | 1,851 |
Too few postings with pay to show a figure: Intern (8), Entry / junior (14), Mid (26).
Pay is the median of posted range midpoints, annualized. US postings in USD seen since Oct 18, 2026. Data as of October 30, 2026.
Three things stand out:
- Senior to staff is the big step. A staff or lead title adds $42,450 at the median over a senior title. Principal postings don't add more: their median is $2,750 below staff.
- Almost no LLM jobs with pay are junior. Intern, entry and mid-level titles together make up 48 of the 1,851 LLM postings with pay (2.6%). Senior and above (senior, staff and principal) make up 953 (51.5%), and titles with no level word make up 692 (37.4%).
- Titles without a level pay a bit more than senior titles. Postings with no level word have a $200,000 median (692), $4,950 above senior (471).
RAG engineer salary by level
| Level (from title) | Median pay (US) | Postings with pay |
|---|---|---|
| Senior | $190,000 | 163 |
| Staff / lead | $224,250 | 118 |
| Principal | $231,500 | 38 |
| Level not stated | $186,400 | 219 |
| All levels | $200,000 | 590 |
Too few postings with pay to show a figure: Intern (1), Entry / junior (6), Mid (9), Manager (12), Director+ (24).
Pay is the median of posted range midpoints, annualized. US postings in USD seen since Oct 18, 2026. Data as of October 30, 2026.
RAG postings pay a little less than LLM postings at each level shown: $5,050 less at senior and $13,250 less at staff. The senior-to-staff step for RAG is $34,250.
Which jobs ask for LLM and RAG skills
These are counts of all open postings as of October 30, 2026, not only postings with pay.
| Role | LLM postings | LLM share | RAG postings | RAG share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI Engineer | 2,236 | 48.9% | 1,048 | 61.0% |
| ML Engineer | 817 | 17.9% | 249 | 14.5% |
| Data Scientist | 402 | 8.8% | 110 | 6.4% |
| Data Engineer | 248 | 5.4% | 77 | 4.5% |
| Data & AI leadership | 243 | 5.3% | 75 | 4.4% |
| AI Research Scientist | 234 | 5.1% | 31 | 1.8% |
| Data Architect | 178 | 3.9% | 110 | 6.4% |
Other roles each have fewer than 110 LLM postings and fewer than 10 RAG postings.
AI engineer and ML engineer postings together account for two in three LLM postings (3,053, 66.7%) and three in four RAG postings (1,297, 75.5%). LLM skills also reach well beyond those two titles: the remaining 1,522 LLM postings (33.3%) are for other roles, led by data scientists (402). For AI engineer pay by level, see senior AI engineer salary.
Pay for other LLM-stack skills
All levels, US postings with pay seen since Oct 18, 2026.
| Skill | Median pay (US) | Postings with pay |
|---|---|---|
| Fine-tuning | $227,500 | 507 |
| vLLM / inference serving | $225,000 | 221 |
| Hugging Face | $218,052 | 104 |
| LLM evaluation | $215,000 | 556 |
| OpenAI API | $211,250 | 457 |
| LLMs | $208,750 | 1,851 |
| AI agents | $205,250 | 1,568 |
| Model Context Protocol | $202,500 | 335 |
| RAG | $200,000 | 590 |
| Vector databases | $200,000 | 371 |
| Embeddings | $200,000 | 415 |
| Prompt engineering | $195,592 | 280 |
| Anthropic Claude | $195,000 | 645 |
| Generative AI | $195,000 | 651 |
| LangChain / LangGraph | $193,750 | 262 |
The skills at the top of this list sit closer to model training and serving, and they show up more in ML engineer postings. Fine-tuning postings split 36.6% AI engineer and 35.3% ML engineer, and vLLM postings are 52.7% ML engineer. The skills at the bottom are about building apps on top of models, and they lean toward AI engineer postings: 67.0% of LangChain postings and 65.7% of prompt engineering postings are AI engineer jobs. Part of each skill's pay gap is the role mix, not the skill alone. The highest-paying data & AI skills explains how role and level drive skill pay.
How to read these figures
- Pay is the median of posted range midpoints, annualized, for US postings in USD seen since Oct 18, 2026. Each posting is counted once.
- A skill counts when the posting mentions it. LLMs means "LLM", "LLMs" or "large language model". RAG means "RAG" or "retrieval-augmented". A posting can count toward several skills.
- Level comes from the job title only. Senior means the title says senior, Sr, III or IV. Staff includes lead titles. Principal includes distinguished and fellow. A title with no level word is "level not stated", not mid-level.
- Postings without a posted range aren't in the pay figures. LLM pay comes from 1,851 US postings with posted pay seen since Oct 18, 2026. The 4,575 count is LLM postings open on October 30, 2026, so the two numbers cover different sets.
- This is a snapshot of the current market, not a trend. Posting counts are as of October 30, 2026.
For the full method, see Methodology. The raw numbers are in the aggregates CSV. Skill pages for LLMs and RAG show the top roles and pay by level for each skill.
FAQ
What is the median LLM engineer salary?
US postings that mention LLMs have a $208,750 median (1,851 postings with posted pay seen since Oct 18, 2026). Senior titles: $195,050 (471).
How much does a staff LLM engineer make?
Staff and lead postings that mention LLMs have a $237,500 median (380 postings with pay), $42,450 more than senior.
What is the median RAG engineer salary?
US postings that mention RAG have a $200,000 median (590 postings with pay). Senior: $190,000 (163). Staff or lead: $224,250 (118).
Is there enough data for entry-level LLM engineer pay?
No. Entry has 14 US postings with pay that mention LLMs and mid-level has 26, under the 30-posting minimum for showing a figure.
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