Let's talk about AI salaries honestly, because there's a lot of misinformation out there.

In India right now — entry level (0-2 years) for AI/ML roles: 8-15 LPA. Mid level (2-5 years): 15-35 LPA. Senior (5-8 years): 35-60 LPA. Lead/Principal: 60 LPA to 1 Cr+.

Globally, US ML engineers range from $130K-$220K. Europe: €80K-€150K. Remote international roles: $100K-$180K.

But here's what the salary threads always miss: these numbers follow VALUE, not years of experience and definitely not certificates.

The highest-paid specializations I'm seeing: LLM/GenAI engineering, ML platform/infrastructure, AI security, and autonomous systems.

I've seen 3-year experience engineers making more than 8-year veterans because they deeply understand LLM deployment at scale and the veteran is still doing basic sklearn projects.

Salary is a lagging indicator of the problems you can solve. Get really good at solving expensive problems, and the compensation follows.

Nobody ever got a raise by collecting another certificate.