Detailed salary breakdown by AI specialty in 2026. Bookmarking material.
LLM/GenAI Engineer:
US: $160K-$300K | India: 25-60 LPA | Remote: $130K-$250K
AI Safety/Evaluation Engineer:
US: $150K-$280K | India: 20-50 LPA | Remote: $120K-$230K
ML Platform/Infrastructure:
US: $170K-$320K | India: 30-65 LPA | Remote: $140K-$270K
Computer Vision Engineer:
US: $140K-$260K | India: 20-45 LPA | Remote: $110K-$220K
NLP Engineer:
US: $140K-$260K | India: 18-45 LPA | Remote: $110K-$220K
MLOps Engineer:
US: $140K-$250K | India: 18-40 LPA | Remote: $110K-$210K
AI Agent Developer:
US: $155K-$290K | India: 22-55 LPA | Remote: $125K-$240K
Robotics ML Engineer:
US: $160K-$300K | India: 25-50 LPA | Remote: $130K-$250K
Data Scientist (with ML):
US: $120K-$220K | India: 15-35 LPA | Remote: $100K-$180K
AI Research Scientist:
US: $180K-$400K | India: 30-70 LPA | Remote: $140K-$300K
These ranges represent total compensation including base, bonus, and equity. Top percentile exceeds upper bounds significantly.
The takeaway: specialization premiums are real. The most in-demand specialties (infrastructure, safety, agents) command 20-40% more than generalist roles.
Your skill choices are compensation choices. Choose strategically.