AI Engineer jobs: skills and pay (October 2026)
3,777 open AI Engineer postings (28.7% of data & AI postings) as of October 18, 2026. Median published US pay: $208K (n=1093).
AI Engineer pay by level
| Level (from title) | Median pay | Postings with pay (n) |
|---|---|---|
| Intern | — | 3 |
| Entry / junior | — | 8 |
| Mid (II) | $150K | 16 |
| Senior | $200K | 297 |
| Staff / lead | $238K | 236 |
| Principal | $245K | 45 |
| Manager | — | 2 |
| Director+ | — | 3 |
| Level not stated | $200K | 483 |
Median of the published range midpoint, US postings in USD, annualized. Shown only when n ≥ 10; “—” means fewer.
The weekly Data Skills Index
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Top skills in AI Engineer postings
Share of AI Engineer postings that mention each skill.
| # | Skill | Share of AI Engineer postings | Postings | Companies | Week over week | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | LLMs genai | 59.8% | 2,260 | 1,791 | needs more history | |
| 2 | Python language | 59.3% | 2,240 | 2,580 | needs more history | |
| 3 | APIs / REST infra | 55.3% | 2,090 | 1,554 | needs more history | |
| 4 | AI agents genai | 52.5% | 1,983 | 1,583 | needs more history | |
| 5 | AWS cloud | 29.6% | 1,117 | 1,452 | needs more history | |
| 6 | TypeScript / JavaScript language | 29.4% | 1,110 | 768 | needs more history | |
| 7 | RAG genai | 28.1% | 1,063 | 898 | needs more history | |
| 8 | CI/CD infra | 25.2% | 952 | 1,178 | needs more history | |
| 9 | Anthropic Claude genai | 23.5% | 886 | 869 | needs more history | |
| 10 | Kubernetes infra | 20.4% | 769 | 891 | needs more history | |
| 11 | Docker / containers infra | 19.3% | 730 | 839 | needs more history | |
| 12 | Generative AI genai | 19.0% | 716 | 720 | needs more history | |
| 13 | Git infra | 18.6% | 704 | 980 | needs more history | |
| 14 | Google Cloud cloud | 17.4% | 659 | 931 | needs more history | |
| 15 | OpenAI API genai | 16.9% | 637 | 581 | needs more history | |
| 16 | Azure cloud | 16.8% | 633 | 809 | needs more history | |
| 17 | LLM evaluation genai | 16.5% | 623 | 689 | needs more history | |
| 18 | Vector databases genai | 16.5% | 623 | 586 | needs more history | |
| 19 | LangChain / LangGraph genai | 16.4% | 619 | 500 | needs more history | |
| 20 | Streaming / real-time concept | 15.8% | 595 | 1,077 | needs more history | |
| 21 | Model Context Protocol genai | 15.4% | 580 | 516 | needs more history | |
| 22 | Statistics analytics | 14.9% | 562 | 1,449 | needs more history | |
| 23 | SQL language | 14.6% | 553 | 1,953 | needs more history | |
| 24 | Prompt engineering genai | 14.3% | 539 | 516 | needs more history | |
| 25 | Fine-tuning genai | 13.9% | 526 | 720 | needs more history |