Backend Engineer compensation
Backend Engineer Salary at AI Startups (2026)
The Backend Engineer salary range at AI startups runs from $65,000 to $315,000, with a median of $189,500 — based on 86 disclosed salaries from postings on Fast AI Jobs. These are aggregate figures only; we never publish an individual company's offer.
$65,000Minimum
$189,500Median
$315,000Maximum
Sample size: based on 86 disclosed salaries.
01
Median Backend Engineer salary by funding stage
| Funding stage | Median salary | Sample size |
|---|---|---|
| Growth | $205,500 | 5 |
| Series C | $190,000 | 15 |
| Series B | $170,000 | 18 |
| Series A | $167,500 | 11 |
| Series E | $151,172 | 26 |
02
How we calculate this
Roughly a quarter of AI-startup postings disclose pay. We extract the USD range from those that do, normalize each to a midpoint, and aggregate across distinct postings (deduplicated by posting ID). The minimum, median, and maximum above are based on 86 disclosed salaries. We publish aggregate ranges only — never a single company's salary — so the numbers stay representative rather than anecdotal.
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