AI Arms Race Drives Engineer Pay To More Than $10 Million (ft.com) 57
Tech companies are paying AI engineers unprecedented salaries as competition for talent intensifies, with some top engineers earning more than $10 million annually and typical packages ranging from $3 million to $7 million. OpenAI told staff this week it is seeking "creative ways to recognize and reward top talent" after losing key employees to rivals, despite offering salaries near the top of the market.
The move followed OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's claim that Meta had promised $100 million sign-on bonuses to the company's most high-profile AI engineers. Mark Chen, OpenAI's chief research officer, sent an internal memo saying he felt "as if someone has broken into our home and stolen something" after recent departures.
AI engineer salaries have risen approximately 50% since 2022, with mid-to-senior level research scientists now earning $500,000 to $2 million at major tech companies, compared to $180,000 to $220,000 for senior software engineers without AI experience.
The move followed OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's claim that Meta had promised $100 million sign-on bonuses to the company's most high-profile AI engineers. Mark Chen, OpenAI's chief research officer, sent an internal memo saying he felt "as if someone has broken into our home and stolen something" after recent departures.
AI engineer salaries have risen approximately 50% since 2022, with mid-to-senior level research scientists now earning $500,000 to $2 million at major tech companies, compared to $180,000 to $220,000 for senior software engineers without AI experience.
Remember (Score:1)
the Java programmers earning $250 per hour back in the 90s? Thant didn't last long.
Re: Remember (Score:2)
No I don't. What I do remember was that $150 was the max. Maybe early 00s but definitely not 90s.
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No I don't. What I do remember was that $150 was the max. Maybe early 00s but definitely not 90s.
I knew one guy that was pulling in $200 an hour. He lived like a pauper and poured all his income into the internet bubble. Then one day (before the bubble burst) he did a bunch of calculations and declared "I've got enough." He quit working, sold all his stocks, and moved to the Philippines. He's still there, living a super-comfortable life.
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I guarantee you that a mid-level research scientist in AI from non-distinguished company is not making $500k per year in flat salary.
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Nothing paying this well lasts that long in a free market.
Not sure about that statement in general. Even without AI, tech salaries are pretty high, at least when viewed from non-tech viewpoints, and that has been true for decades. We techies think its just normal, but that's not a universal viewpoint.
However, the current madness around AI expert compensation is mostly due to timing. High AI compensation has been a thing for several years now, but only for a few top experts. The difference now is that the definition of expert is now expanded, so the number of p
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Re: Remember (Score:2)
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Indeed. I *still* get unsolicited pings from recruiters wondering if I'm interested in java programming opportunities, because my resume lists java in my experience from 2001. But none of those new openings goes for $250/hr.
Reference? (Score:1)
None? This is badly.
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I definitely know people making over $2M/yr, most of it in RSUs. $10M seems like director/VP kind of money for these companies, but it doesn't seem unreasonable.
It's worth so much more in investor capital for companies to pay big bucks for the *apperance* of a technical acumen in AI that they're willing to have a very small number of high profile experts making the big dollars just to keep the money flowing in. Even if said experts are doing jack shit, are just talkers, or working their own agenda. Ultimate
A lot of money... (Score:2, Insightful)
That's a lot of money, considering we don't have anything even remotely close to AI.
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In the marketplace, nobody cares about pedantic definitions. It's a product that is attracting a lot of eyeballs and followers these days, whatever you call it.
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That's a lot of money, considering we don't have anything even remotely close to AI.
Paying this crazy money only makes sense before the technology becomes mature. Once we have something that is obviously working, the compensation decreases because it's just engineering and no longer high-risk research.
As for the statement that we don't have anything remotely close to AI. That may be arguably true for chatbots, but that's a small part of the AI push. There are many AI projects that are already very promising in the near term. Some involve generative AI, but many do not. Viewed in the v
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It is insanity, greed, hype and FOMO. The money invested and the ages paid are totally decoupled from the value of the product (low as that is) now. Usually that is a sign that the end of the mass-hysterics is near.
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You don't need what you mean by "AI", thinking of sci-fi movies, to have AI that is worth the money.
You want an "I, robot". Users want a bot that finds the content in the search results page they were looking for without having to click 20 clickbait links themselves.
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While all that may be true, your description of what users want is AI, it's just a search engine.
It's kind of the difference between telling the computer "summarize the causes of the last five major wars" and "tell me what the next major war will be, when it will happen, who the belligerents are and the most likely outcome and duration", and being able to explain that answer.
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AI and search are converging. Have a look at ChatGPT with web access, at Perplexity, and at Google's new search.
The next step after this is agents and MCP. I'm not that deep into that yet, but I think that if everything that has an IP will have an MCP API (current hype looks a bit like that...), we will see a lot of integrations mediated by an AI model in the middle.
For how many years? (Score:3)
How many years do they have to work there before they get the bonus? Because $10 million is more than enough to retire, even in the Silicon Valley. So they can probably assume that most of these engineers will work there until the bonus pay date, and then retire and do whatever they want to do instead of what someone else tells them to do.
After all, most engineers are driven less by money and more by wanting to do cool stuff. If they have enough money to be able to only do cool stuff and never have to worry about money again, why would they want more money? Why would they choose to do what other people want them to do, when they can do the even cooler stuff that they want to do?
Bonuses that big tend to be counterproductive.
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I would guess that the people getting those bonuses will almost certainly have a passion for their work, and will want to continue working in the same area.
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I would guess that the people getting those bonuses will almost certainly have a passion for their work, and will want to continue working in the same area.
Yeah, but work for somebody else on the projects they want you to do, or work for yourself on the projects you choose?
"Top talent" (Score:2)
It's not about top talent, it's about top level access to the training recipes and architectures. That's what Meta is buying. Even if you try to compartmentalise, a lot of people need a high level overview to do architecture exploration. Once the exploration is finished, their knowledge of the results is worth a lot more than their talent.
Due to OpenAI and Anthropic wanting to portray a goody two shoes image, their means to keep that knowledge locked up as trade secrets is very limited.
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Top talent is likely to have originally developed the training recipes and the inference technology, or at least worked closely with it. Hire those guys and they can write an improved version 2 for Meta.
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The recipes are not secret. Most AI researchers know the full recipe. DeepSeek has published detailed papers on all their techniques. Meta and DeepSeek have published their full weights and models, and there are hundreds of models from them and many other companies published on Hugging Face. The math involved is simple Linear Algebra and Calculus - first year undergrad math at every university. DeepSeek is staffed by new grads with 1-2 years experience.
That said, there is probably a few minor properiet
Re:"Top talent" (Score:4, Interesting)
After a certain modest amount (less than you think), money can't buy happiness.
Only people who have never had money say that.
Money predictably and steadily reduces your stress the more you get, and once you've got enough to start having rich people problems, those problems are still less stressful than what the 99% go through daily.
My salary has steadily increased at a well-above-average rate. I'm an over-90% earner, and I can't say the happiness I've been able to buy has slowed down, or shows any signs of slowing down.
Overall, I rate your claim false.
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After a certain modest amount (less than you think), money can't buy happiness.
Overall, I rate your claim false.
Nobel laureates Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton agree with me: High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being [pnas.org]
From the paper:
We raise the question of whether money buys happiness
TL;DR; It doesn't
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The paper concludes one thing only- that rich people also get divorced and have other life problems, and that at $75k, the "daily happiness" you have bought no longer drowns out those things in the survey.
It also concludes that as long as we preclude the following:
Thriving -- well-being that is strong, consistent, and progressing. These respondents have positive views of their present life situation (7+) and have positive views of the next five years (8+). They report significantly fewer health problems, fewer sick days, less worry, stress, sadness, anger, and more happiness, enjoyment, interest, and respect.
from the definition of "happiness", then happiness does indeed peak at $75k.
This is why it's important to actually read something you've regurgitated from some headline somewhere.
Paper is stupid. So are you.
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Being told I suck by the riffraff just amuses me.
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Yeah, I always hear that money can't buy happiness bullshit and maybe that's true, but it can buy everything else, which would lead to happiness. So therefore, yes, money can buy happiness. That's why we need all of us to be poor, so those "better" people can be happy!
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You structure it out to minimize taxes, defer compensation, etc.
What measures of value ? (Score:2)
In short, where does the money come from to pay them? How is this justifiable or sustainable? Especially if you have little to no revenue?
To me, this is just megalomania.
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So, I'm having a hard time seeing how this works in reality. So you hire 10 engineers for 1 billion in expenses to the company. How do you measure value each eng brings to the company? At review time can you ask for $10M if you hit your targets?
Wouldn't that be $100,000,000.00 per year if 10 engineers split 1 billion $?
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So, yes.
How about the Jony Ive OpenAI deal? 6.5B all stock = 120million / employee (55 employees)
You have to make the money somewhere to pay it out.
For companies without products these valuations seem nonsensical.
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Jony Ive OpenAI deal? 6.5B all stock = 120million / employee (55 employees)
That is a ridiculous waste of money on one person for sure.
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So you hire 10 engineers for 1 billion in expenses to the company.
So, I'm having a hard time seeing how this works in reality.
I bet you are. Math works very differently where you're from than where the rest of us are. That's going to make reconciliation with our reality very difficult for you.
Re: What measures of value ? (Score:1)
Which part of "you aren't worth 10 million dollars" did you not understand ?
Did you overdose on antihistamines?
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We know all about Altman's $100M/Engineer claim- but this article was about $10M/Engineer.
Reading is an important skill. It will make you look less stupid in the future.
Re: What measures of value ? (Score:2)
Mmmm mmm
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How very insecure, lol
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Ohhhhh yahhh that's it
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I mean to each their own- I don't judge. I won't hit you like your daddy did, though.
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That does take away from the insult a bit, damn.
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Ha ha, un-fucking-believable! You don't sound very busy for a clever network engineer or whatever you bragged about, I may have forgotten. Along with your sinus headaches, and anti histamines, you might want to try ritalin. You seem a little compulsive.
You might be a good engineer, I actually complimented you on a lucid and insightful comment the other day, but you'e a shitstain of a person, so kindly blow me again.
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You are such a pedantic cunt you came back to fix a typo in your own post?!
Absolutely! It's how I distinguish myself from people who can read, and like you- not.
You don't sound very busy for a clever network engineer or whatever you bragged about, I may have forgotten.
The higher you get, the less busy you are. It's an ironic thing about how the world works.
When you move up from fryer-jockey, you'll start to get it.
But seriously- have you figured out the difference between 10 and 100 yet? Asking for a friend.
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Think of it frequently. All day long actually, since you have the time.
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Congratulations! You Won!! (Score:2)
SLASHDOT PEDANTIC CUNT OF THE YEAR 2025
WINNER: DAMN OREGONIAN
Now you can get back to finding typos and trying to make them sound really important and deliberately misinterpreting what people say on slashdot. I'm sure that's a big part of your very very important position doing something or other.
I got to admit, you really deserve this, Seriously, Congratulations Bro.
Keep it up, I'm sure you'll be a strong contend
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how to get a 7-figure paycheck (Score:3)
If I were starting out I sure would be hitting the books learning everything I could about the various aspects of AI technology. I would be looking at all of the open source implementations and getting a good feel for how they work. I would be attempting to craft my own LLM's, and try to build 'small language models' that are specific to limited domains where a company might have loads of training data but no expertise. I would attend all of the AI conferences and get to know as many people in the business as I could. I would publish my work on github, and ideally write a paper or two about some things I learned along the way.
Leverage that to land one job putting it all to good use, probably get paid $200k-300k for a year, and then sell yourself as an expensive expert. You might be carrying water for the $10 million engineers for a while, no problem.
Total insanity (Score:2)
The end of this hype myst be near. And the collapse at its end will probably a lot worse than expected.
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It is really sad to see people not learning from history and making the same dumb mistakes again and again and again. Remember this in a few years. Maybe you will learn something then.
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Just today, a Jr. Admin who works under me said, "ChatGPT has completely replaced Google for me!", and my CEO agreed with him.
Now, I'm not in the same boat as these dudes. 1) I don't pay for any paid LLM service (but I do run them extensively locally) 2) I would never ask it for factual information. But the fact is- they're not going anywhere, buddy.
Sounds still cheap in comparison to CEO salaries (Score:2)
\o/ (Score:1)
So awesome, particularly when rent for a single-bed home is $100k/mo :P