Machine Learning Engineer compensation
Machine Learning Engineer Salary at AI Startups (2026)
The median Machine Learning Engineer salary at AI startups is $205,000, based on 98 disclosed job postings ($100,000–$400,000 range). Updated October 2026. These are aggregate figures only; we never publish an individual company's offer.
$100,000Minimum
$205,000Median
$400,000Maximum
Sample size: based on 98 disclosed salaries.
01
Median Machine Learning Engineer salary by funding stage
| Funding stage | Median salary | Sample size |
|---|---|---|
| Seed | $255,000 | 6 |
| Series E | $250,000 | 11 |
| Series A | $242,250 | 11 |
| Growth | $220,000 | 7 |
| Series D | $197,500 | 15 |
| Series F | $196,250 | 8 |
| Series C | $196,000 | 19 |
| Series B | $194,000 | 11 |
| Series G+ | $190,000 | 8 |
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 98 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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