Skills › ml
Reinforcement learning jobs: demand and pay (October 2026)
514 open data & AI postings at 276 companies mention Reinforcement learning, or 3.9% of all data & AI postings we track (as of October 18, 2026).
3.9%share of data & AI postings
276companies hiring
$242Kmedian pay, US (n=237)
—week over week (needs more history)
Reinforcement learning pay by level
| Level (from title) | Median pay | Postings with pay (n) |
|---|---|---|
| Entry / junior | — | 2 |
| Mid (II) | — | 2 |
| Senior | $222K | 53 |
| Staff / lead | $280K | 48 |
| Principal | — | 7 |
| Manager | — | 7 |
| Director+ | — | 5 |
| Level not stated | $240K | 113 |
Median of the published range midpoint, US postings in USD, annualized. Shown only when n ≥ 10; “—” means fewer.
Roles that ask for Reinforcement learning
| Role | Postings | % of that role |
|---|---|---|
| Machine Learning Engineer | 177 | 9.0% |
| AI Engineer | 137 | 3.6% |
| AI Research Scientist | 116 | 26.6% |
| Data Scientist | 48 | 3.1% |
| Data & AI leadership | 27 | 2.5% |
| Data Engineer | 4 | 0.2% |
| Data Architect | 3 | 0.8% |
| Data Governance & Quality | 2 | 0.9% |
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How it's measured: a posting counts if its title or description matches the Reinforcement learning patterns in our taxonomy. Postings by the vendor itself are excluded. See the methodology.