The median machine learning engineer posting in San Francisco at a tech startup offers $240K base, with the middle half between $223K and $282K — from 80 live pay ranges at 32 companies.
| Level | Postings | Median | Middle 50% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Level not stated | 48 | $240K | $201K–$286K |
| Senior | 14 | $231K | $226K–$238K |
| Staff+ | 17 | $281K | $250K–$294K |
| Company | Postings | Median | Middle 50% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wispr Flow | 2 | $305K | $295K–$315K |
| Suno | 2 | $304K | $300K–$308K |
| Anthropic | 4 | $300K | $290K–$300K |
| OpenAI | 13 | $265K | $245K–$371K |
| Ambience Healthcare | 2 | $252K | $241K–$263K |
| Together AI | 3 | $250K | $240K–$250K |
| Campfire | 2 | $240K | $240K–$240K |
| Baseten | 3 | $240K | $211K–$244K |
| Lila Sciences | 4 | $239K | $239K–$253K |
| Waymo | 17 | $238K | $195K–$281K |
| Databricks | 3 | $238K | $213K–$262K |
| Handshake | 2 | $215K | $192K–$237K |
| Hive | 3 | $205K | $178K–$228K |
| Glean | 2 | $198K | $195K–$200K |
| Machine Learning Engineer, Monetization AI/ML OpenAI |
$381K–$555K |
| Machine Learning Engineer, Implicit Signals OpenAI |
$381K–$510K |
| Machine Learning Engineer, Frontier Data Products Mercor |
$180K–$500K |
| Machine Learning Engineer, API Multicloud OpenAI |
$223K–$423K |
| Machine Learning Engineer, Growth OpenAI |
$381K–$423K |
| ML Engineer Wispr Flow |
$250K–$400K |
| Founding Machine Learning Engineer Shepherd |
$180K–$400K |
| Machine Learning Engineer, Multimodal Perception and Authentication OpenAI |
$342K–$399K |
Figures are the midpoint of each pay range published in a job posting (US$, base salary as posted), across open roles at the startups we track, recalculated daily. Postings without a range, interns and contractors are excluded. Updated Oct 27, 2026.