As Big Tech and startups race for domination in AI, they're throwing money at job candidates.BI pulled federal filings from top unicorn startups to see how much they're paying workers.See the startups dangling mid-six-figure salaries in the war for talent.
Do you hear that? The groans. The thuds of heads hitting desks. That's the sound of workers mourning their choice to study English, psychology, or anything other than computer science, as a hiring war in tech escalates and AI engineers write their own tickets.
As Big Tech and startups race to dominate the next frontier of artificial intelligence, they're offering money, perks, and equity to a limited pool of technical talent who will join them.
Tech salaries range from eye-popping to borderline obscene. At OpenAI, technical staff can pull in up to $530,000 a year, according to data from federal filings. Over at Anthropic, research engineers earn up to $690,000. Even software engineers at garden-variety unicorns — venture-backed companies worth at least one billion — routinely make $250,000.
The numbers come from filings that companies must submit to the Department of Labor when hiring foreign workers through the H-1B visa program, which allows them to bring in 85,000 specialized workers annually through a lottery system.
Because tech companies typically guard their compensation details closely, these government-mandated disclosures provide a peek into pay scales. The numbers reflect annual salaries alone, excluding the stock options, signing bonuses, and other perks that can often double or triple total compensation packages.
For this list, Business Insider pulled filings from some of the top AI startups valued at over $2 billion, excluding companies in robotics, defense, and autonomous driving. See how your salary stacks up against someone's from Cohere, Glean, Thinking Machines Lab, and more.
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Finance & Strategy: $230,000Member of Technical Staff: $300,000 to $405,000Member of Technical Staff (Manager): $690,000People Partner: $285,000Recruiter: $170,000Regulatory Operations Lead: $210,000Research Engineer: $340,000 to $690,000Research Operations: $230,000Startup Account Executive: $126,000
Anysphere (maker of Cursor)
Anysphere CEO Michael Truell.
Lenny's Podcast/YouTube
Product Designer: $250,000
Cohere
Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez.
Cole Burston/AFP via Getty Images
Member of Technical Staff: $240,000
Glean
Glean CEO Arvind Jain.
Glean
Data Science Tech Lead Manager: $230,000Software Engineer: $190,000 to $260,000Software Engineer, Machine Learning: $210,000Software Engineering Manager: $250,000
Grammarly
Grammarly CEO Shishir Mehrotra.
Coda
AI Engineer: $223,000Analytical Linguist: $164,800Analytics Engineer: $250,000Data Scientist: $170,000Engineering Manager, Data Platform: $315,000Machine Learning Software Engineer: $318,000Marketing Manager: $225,000Software Engineer: $180,000 to $302,100Product Designer: $110,000 to $230,000Product Manager: $200,000Software Engineer, Data Platform: $196,000System Engineer, Finance Infrastructure: $280,000Technical Accounting Manager: $201,600User Researcher: $221,520
Mistral AI
Mistral AI CEO Arthur Mensch.
Sarah Meyssonnier/AFP via Getty Images
AI Scientist: $280,000 to $350,000
A spokesperson for Mistral said that while some employees do fall within that range, a more accurate salary band for US-based roles is $150,000 to $450,000. Mistral is hiring.
OpenAI
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Member of Communications Staff: $216,000Member of Data Science Staff: $245,000 to $385,000Member of Design Staff: $245,000Member of Finance Staff: $265,000Member of Go To Market Staff: $220,000 to $280,000Member of Intelligence and Investigations Staff: $320,000 to $382,500Member of Program Staff: $270,000 to $340,000Member of Support and Community Staff: $235,000Member of Technical Staff (Hardware Engineer): $360,000Member of Technical Staff: $210,000 to $530,000Member of Technical Staff (Research Engineer): $210,000 to $440,000Member of Technical Staff (Research Scientist): $245,000 to $440,000Member of Technical Staff (Security Engineer): $310,000Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer): $200,000 to $440,000
A recruiter at OpenAI said more accurate salary bands are listed on the company's careers page. According to those listings, research engineers earn between $295,000 and $530,000, while software engineers make between $255,000 and $590,000.
Perplexity
Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas.
Kimberly White/Getty Images for TechCrunch
Member of Technical Staff: $206,315 to $290,000
Poolside
Poolside CEO Jason Warner.
Jason Warner
Performance Director: $230,000
Safe Superintelligence Inc.
Safe Superintelligence Inc. Cofounder Ilya Sutskever.
JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images
Member of Technical Staff: $150,000 to $500,000
Synthesia
Synthesia CEO Victor Riparbelli.
Justin Tallis/AFP via Getty Images
Customer Success Manager: $120,000
A Synthesia spokesman said that the London-founded company is hiring in its New York office, given that more than half of its revenue comes from the US.
Thinking Machines Lab
Thinking Machines Lab CEO Mira Murati.
Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images for WIRED
Member of Technical Staff: $450,000 to $500,000Co-Founder/Machine Learning Scientist: $450,000
