How Much Do Machine Learning Engineer Jobs Pay in the USA? (November 2026)
As of November 2026, the median Machine Learning Engineer salary in the USA is $215,950 a year. Most roles pay between $145,600 and $301,409 (the 10th–90th percentile), drawn from 650 live salaried listings across 246 companies. All figures are converted to annual US dollars so different sources compare like-for-like.
How pay has moved
Median base salary by month, from our monthly salary snapshots.
Highest-paying employers
- Machine Learning Engineer, Monetization AI/MLMachine Learning Engineer, Core ExperimentationMachine Learning Engineer, Implicit SignalsMachine Learning Engineer, Multimodal Perception and AuthenticationMachine Learning Engineer, API MulticloudAll OpenAI roles →
- Research Engineer / Performance Engineer, RL Distributed SystemsResearch Engineer, Machine Learning (RL Velocity)Research Engineer, Pretraining Scaling Research Engineer / Research Scientist, TokensML/Research Engineer, SafeguardsAll Anthropic roles →
- Principal Software Engineer, Machine LearningPrincipal Software Engineer, Machine LearningSenior Machine Learning EngineerSenior Machine Learning EngineerAll Attentive roles →
- All Mercor roles →
- All xAI roles →
Employers ranked by median advertised base among those with at least two salaried listings in the USA; each one’s best-paying open roles are listed beneath it.
Methodology: Machine Learning Engineer listings in the USA with a published salary, updated daily. Figures come from roles that are open right now. Ranges and single figures are converted to an annual US-dollar midpoint; hourly rates are annualised and out-of-band values dropped. Salary data is self-reported by employers and covers the roles that disclose pay — treat it as a directional guide, not a guarantee.