Builds and runs the large-scale training and evaluation systems used to create frontier AI models such as large language models. Levels.fyi company pages (Anthropic, OpenAI) puts typical pay at $598,000 a year (2026). BLS does not publish separate figures for computer and information research scientists; it counts them within computer and information research scientist (SOC 15-1221), whose median pay is $140,300 a year (BLS OEWS, May 2025). Typical entry-level education: Master's degree.
- SOC 15-1221
- Computer and Mathematical
- Last updated October 9, 2026
At a glance
AI Research Engineer in four numbers
- Median pay
- $140,300a year, or $67.45/hrBLS OEWS, May 2025Lowest 10% $82KTop 10% $231K
US median, all jobs: $50,980
- Projected growth
- +21.8%Much faster than averageBLS EP, 2025–2035This career+21.8%All jobs+3.5%
Projected employment change, 2025–2035 Item Value This career +21.8% All jobs +3.5% - Openings a year
- 2,90038,600 jobs todayBLS EP, 2025–2035
- Jobs in 202538.6K
- Projected 203547K
Employment, 2025–2035 Item Value Jobs in 2025 38.6K Projected 2035 47K - Typical education
- Master'sneeded to enterBLS EP, 2025–2035; mix: O*NET
- Some college8.4%
- Bachelor's36.2%
- Master's19.9%
- Professional degree2.6%
- Doctorate28.4%
- Post-doctoral training4.5%
Highest education held by computer and information research scientists Segment Value Some college 8.4% Bachelor's 36.2% Master's 19.9% Professional degree 2.6% Doctorate 28.4% Post-doctoral training 4.5%
Also advertised as: Research Engineer, Machine Learning, LLM Research Engineer, Pretraining Research Engineer, Member of Technical Staff, Research, Research Engineer, Large Language Models.
Pay
How much do Computer and Information Research Scientists make?
Industry-reported pay
$598,000
Total compensation (base, bonus and private-company equity at grant value) at the Senior Software Engineer level at Anthropic, US, self-reported; high is the Staff level. OpenAI levels are similar or higher.
- Top earners
- $1,130,000
Source: Levels.fyi company pages (Anthropic, OpenAI), 2026 (estimate from several industry sources). This is not a BLS figure: BLS counts computer and information research scientists within computer and information research scientist, whose pay is shown below. Levels.fyi: Anthropic Software Engineer Salaries · Levels.fyi: OpenAI Software Engineer Salaries
Every ai research engineer in the US, by percentile of annual wage
Median
$140,300
Middle half earn $103,570 to $188,700
- 10th
- $82,200
- 25th
- $103,570
- 75th
- $188,700
- 90th
- $230,630
All US occupations: $50,980
| Percentile | Value |
|---|---|
| 10th | $82,200 |
| 25th | $103,570 |
| Median | $140,300 |
| 75th | $188,700 |
| 90th | $230,630 |
| All US occupations | $50,980 |
Source: BLS OEWS, May 2025
- Median annual wage
- $140,300
- Median hourly wage
- $67.45/hr
- Mean annual wage
- $153,930
- People employed
- 37,200
Versus all US occupations
At $140,300, Computer and Information Research Scientists earn 175% above the $50,980 median across all US occupations, a difference of $89,320 a year.
Versus computer and mathematical occupations
Inside the Computer and Mathematical group, where the middle occupation pays $116,580, this is 20% above the group median.
Pay range
The top 10% earn $230,630 or more while the bottom 10% earn $82,200, a gap of 2.8×. That is a typical spread for a US occupation.
Rank in the bank
This median pays more than 91% of the 1,741 occupations in the NueCareer career bank.
Highest-paying state
Oregon pays the most at $206,220, and still leads at $199,514 once local prices are taken into account.
Pay by state
Which states pay Computer and Information Research Scientists the most?
State medians come from the same OEWS release as the national figures. The cost-of-living column divides each state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, restating pay in national-average dollars so a high-cost state and a low-cost one can be compared directly.
| State | Median | COL-adjusted | Employed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1Oregon | $206,220 | $199,514 | 730 |
| 2Washington | $202,400 | $189,136 | 2,050 |
| 3New York | $181,990 | $168,633 | 1,950 |
| 4Massachusetts | $170,510 | $161,228 | 1,760 |
| 5New Mexico | $165,690 | $179,684 | 490 |
| 6California | $159,100 | $143,696 | 8,440 |
| 7Virginia | $157,390 | $155,671 | 3,590 |
| 8Maryland | $145,310 | $138,445 | 2,870 |
| 9District of Columbia | $144,190 | $131,200 | 330 |
| 10New Jersey | $140,840 | $129,443 | 1,580 |
Job outlook
Is AI Research Engineer a growing career?
Employment change over 2025–2035, against every US occupation
Much faster than average. +21.8% projected growth vs 3.5% for all occupations.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Computer and Information Research Scientists | +21.8% |
| All US occupations | +3.5% |
Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035
Much faster than average
BLS projects employment of Computer and Information Research Scientists to change 21.8% over 2025–2035, roughly 6.2× the 3.5% projected for all occupations. That is 8,400 more jobs.
Annual openings
About 2,900 openings are projected each year, 7.5% of the 38,600 jobs that existed in 2025. Most come from workers leaving the occupation, not from growth alone.
Getting in
How to become an AI Research Engineer
Most research engineers have a bachelor's or master's degree in computer science, mathematics or physics, and some hold doctorates. Labs care most about very strong programming, especially in Python and frameworks like PyTorch or JAX, plus practical knowledge of deep learning and distributed systems.
Common routes include working as a software engineer on large-scale infrastructure and then moving into ML, contributing to open-source model training projects, reproducing published research, or completing a research residency program at an AI lab. Publications help but are not required. Interviews usually test coding, machine learning fundamentals and the ability to debug large systems.
- 1
Typical entry-level education
Master's degree
- 2
Work experience in a related occupation
None
- 3
Typical on-the-job training
None
- 4
Preparation needed (O*NET job zone)
Considerable preparation
BLS Employment Projections, 2025–2035; job zone from O*NET 31.0 Database.
What education people in the job have
O*NET incumbent survey: the highest level of education reported by people already working as computer and information research scientists.
- Bachelor's Degree36.2%
- Doctoral Degree28.4%
- Master's Degree19.9%
- Some College Courses8.4%
- Post-Doctoral Training4.5%
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Bachelor's Degree | 36.2% |
| Doctoral Degree | 28.4% |
| Master's Degree | 19.9% |
| Some College Courses | 8.4% |
| Post-Doctoral Training | 4.5% |
Source: O*NET 31.0 Database
The work
What does an AI Research Engineer do?
AI research engineers sit between research scientists and infrastructure engineers at AI labs. They turn research ideas into experiments that run across thousands of GPUs: writing training code, building data pipelines, tuning how a model is split across machines, and making sure long training runs recover from hardware failures. When a run behaves strangely, they dig into the numbers to find out whether the cause is a bug, a data problem or a real research finding.
Research engineers also build the evaluations that show whether a new model is better, safer or more capable than the last one, and the tools researchers use every day. At frontier labs the line between research engineer and research scientist is thin, and many research engineers co-author papers.
Day-to-day tasks
- Write and optimize code that trains large models across many GPUs
- Build data pipelines that filter and prepare training data
- Design evaluations that measure model capabilities and safety
- Run experiments and analyze training curves and results
- Debug numerical instability and failures in long training runs
- Build internal tools that speed up researchers' work
- Collaborate with research scientists on papers and new methods
Typical tasks, researched by NueCareer from the sources below.
Working conditions and hours
Research engineers work at AI labs, big tech research divisions and well-funded AI startups, concentrated in the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, New York and London. Work is desk-based and often in-office, with fast iteration and occasional late nights during critical training runs. Teams are small and the pace is demanding.
Where the work happens
Indoors, climate-controlled
NeverEvery dayIndoors, in a climate-controlled space, every day.
Outdoors in all weather
NeverEvery dayAlmost never works outdoors.
Physical demands
Sitting
NeverAlmost all the timeSeated for more than half the working day.
Standing
NeverAlmost all the timeBending or twisting
NeverAlmost all the time
Working with people
Contact with other people
NoneConstantFace-to-face discussions
NeverEvery dayFace-to-face discussions every day.
Dealing with the public
Not importantExtremely important
Pressure and stakes
Strict deadlines
NeverEvery dayConflict situations
NeverEvery dayCost of a mistake
Not seriousExtremely serious
Autonomy
Freedom to decide
NoneA lotA lot of freedom to make decisions without checking first.
Conditions: O*NET Work Context survey. Each item has its own scale, so each dot is read against the two answers that end its own line.
Core skills
O*NET importance, 1 to 5
- Critical Thinking4.0
- Reading Comprehension3.8
- Active Listening3.8
- Speaking3.5
- Active Learning3.5
- Writing3.4
- Mathematics3.4
- Science3.1
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Critical Thinking | 4.0 |
| Reading Comprehension | 3.8 |
| Active Listening | 3.8 |
| Speaking | 3.5 |
| Active Learning | 3.5 |
| Writing | 3.4 |
| Mathematics | 3.4 |
| Science | 3.1 |
Source: O*NET 31.0 Database
Transferable skills
O*NET importance, 1 to 5
- Complex Problem Solving4.0
- Judgment and Decision Making4.0
- Systems Analysis3.8
- Programming3.6
- Systems Evaluation3.6
- Time Management3.4
- Operations Analysis3.1
- Technology Design3.1
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Complex Problem Solving | 4.0 |
| Judgment and Decision Making | 4.0 |
| Systems Analysis | 3.8 |
| Programming | 3.6 |
| Systems Evaluation | 3.6 |
| Time Management | 3.4 |
| Operations Analysis | 3.1 |
| Technology Design | 3.1 |
Source: O*NET 31.0 Database
Tools and software
- Analytical or scientific software · in demand
- Application server software · in demand
- Business intelligence and data analysis software · in demand
- Cloud-based management software · in demand
- Configuration management software · in demand
- Data base management system software · in demand
- Data base user interface and query software · in demand
- Data mining software · in demand
- Development environment software · in demand
- Enterprise application integration software · in demand
- Expert system software · in demand
- File versioning software · in demand
“In demand” marks an O*NET Employer-Based Hot Technology, software named in real job postings for this occupation.
Personality fit
What personality type suits an AI Research Engineer?
NueCareer estimate (Holland code IRC) built on O*NET's Computer and Information Research Scientist profile, scored 1 to 7
| Axis | AI Research Engineer |
|---|---|
| Realistic | 5 |
| Investigative | 7 |
| Artistic | 3 |
| Social | 2 |
| Enterprising | 2 |
| Conventional | 5 |
Source: O*NET 31.0 Database
What the work is built around
Day to day this is work built around investigating, analysing and solving problems with ideas and data, combined with organising, following procedures and working precisely with data.
- Investigative7.0
- Conventional5.1
- Realistic4.5
- Artistic3.0
- Enterprising2.5
- Social2.0
Closest MBTI types
NueCareer fit scores: cosine similarity between each MBTI type's interest vector and this occupation's O*NET interest profile. Not a BLS or O*NET figure; the method is documented on our methodology page.
Explore further
Careers related to AI Research Engineer
O*NET related occupations
- Computer and Mathematical
Computer and Information Research Scientist
$140,300median a year
Most earn $82K to $231K
+21.8%Master's - Computer and Mathematical
- Computer and Mathematical
- Computer and Mathematical
- Computer and Mathematical
- Computer and Mathematical
More computer and mathematical careers
Median annual pay, with computer and information research scientists highlighted
- AI Research Engineer$140,300
- Software Developer$135,980
- Actuary$130,000
- Data Scientist$120,230
- Business Intelligence Analyst$120,230
- Database Administrator$104,620
- Web Designer$104,000
- Computer Programmer$100,390
- Web Developer$92,650
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| AI Research Engineer | $140,300 |
| Software Developer | $135,980 |
| Actuary | $130,000 |
| Data Scientist | $120,230 |
| Business Intelligence Analyst | $120,230 |
| Database Administrator | $104,620 |
| Web Designer | $104,000 |
| Computer Programmer | $100,390 |
| Web Developer | $92,650 |
Source: BLS OEWS, May 2025
Lists AI Research Engineer appears on
Questions
AI Research Engineer: frequently asked questions
How much do Computer and Information Research Scientists make?
Levels.fyi company pages (Anthropic, OpenAI) reports $598,000 (total compensation (base, bonus and private-company equity at grant value) at the Senior Software Engineer level at Anthropic, US, self-reported; high is the Staff level. OpenAI levels are similar or higher, 2026), with top earners around $1,130,000. BLS does not publish a separate wage for computer and information research scientists. It counts them within computer and information research scientist, whose median pay is $140,300 a year (BLS OEWS, May 2025). The middle half of that occupation earn between $103,570 and $188,700, and the top 10% earn $230,630 or more.
Do you need a degree to become an AI Research Engineer?
Yes. BLS reports a master's degree as the typical entry-level education for Computer and Information Research Scientists, and O*NET rates the preparation needed as considerable preparation. In O*NET's survey of people already doing the job, 36.2% hold bachelor's degree.
Is AI Research Engineer a growing career?
Yes, strongly. Employment is projected to grow 21.8% over 2025–2035, more than double the 3.5% projected for all occupations (BLS EP, 2025–2035). BLS still projects about 2,900 openings a year, mostly from workers retiring or moving to other work.
What does an AI Research Engineer do?
AI research engineers sit between research scientists and infrastructure engineers at AI labs. A typical task: write and optimize code that trains large models across many GPUs. Employers most often ask for Analytical or scientific software, Application server software, Business intelligence and data analysis software.
Which states pay Computer and Information Research Scientists the most?
The highest state medians for Computer and Information Research Scientists are Oregon ($206,220), Washington ($202,400), New York ($181,990) (BLS OEWS, May 2025).
What personality type suits an AI Research Engineer?
O*NET scores Computer and Information Research Scientists highest on the Investigative, Conventional and Realistic interest areas, so the work mixes investigating, analysing and solving problems with ideas and data with organising, following procedures and working precisely with data. On NueCareer's MBTI-to-interest mapping that lines up most closely with INTJ personalities. Personality is a fit signal, not a gate. The free NueCareer quiz scores your own profile against all 1,731 careers in the bank.