9 ms·

Manually verified job salaries/offers in Artificial Intelligence

85 points by cracker_jacks 6y ago

rich_sasha 6y ago
Interesting, basically it is 4 companies, plus DeepMind, plus some small residual. I remember looking more closely at this sector, from a UK perspective, and finding next to no well-paying jobs, never mind interesting (well-paid on the scale of this webpage). If there are some I’m dying to know! But if this is a wider trend, it is odd how not just the internet, personal data etc that are owned by FAANGs, but the market in AI jobs too.
kendallchuang 6y ago
It would be nice to see the years of experience and education for the different positions. AI/ML is a rapidly growing field the past few years so a lot of these individuals probably came from academia or different industries.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- atg_abhishek 6y ago
  Agreed, without the number of years of experience (there is possibly a loose correlation with the levels indicated) it is hard to make sense of the data
woeirua 6y ago
I really wish that sites like these would branch out to more employers beyond just the FAANGs because the number of jobs in AI/ML at these employers is just a small fraction of what we see in the larger industry. You can prove that to yourself by just looking at LinkedIn. I think if we had a truly representative sampling of all people working with "AI/ML" related titles, we'd see that the the true total comp distribution is much lower, and probably just slightly better than a typical software engineer's total comp with a similar amount of experience.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  The reality is that FAANG-type companies are the only companies large enough to pay these salaries and with enough hires to keep it anonymous. These sites are also heavy on selection bias. If someone arrives at this site with a $150K AI salary, they're not going to go to the trouble of submitting it and getting it accepted. Instead, they're going to start updating their resume and browsing job sites while they seek these higher salaries.
  - woeirua 6y ago
    I don't know... Glassdoor's system seems to work pretty well for collecting this kind of data. Sure the number of reported salaries is maybe too small to say anything specific about individual companies, but in aggregate places like Glassdoor and LinkedIn could probably tell us with high certainty what the distribution looks like.
    - compthrowaway 6y ago
      In a world where (A) compensation is typically mostly in the form of liquid equity grants and (B) compensation amounts change rapidly year-on-year, Glassdoor's system vastly understates compensation in the field.
      - woeirua 6y ago
        But you have to recognize that this system is very atypical outside of FAANGs. Most large companies have very modest stock incentive programs.
        MiroF 6y ago
        > FAANGs Do we just use FAANGs to mean every West coast software company? Because otherwise it is very typical of non-FAANGs as well.
  - throw9872349872 6y ago
    Just some anecdata, I’m in ml not in faang and make more than the top end of the survey in the OP. If I were to give some guidance, I’d suggest skipping on faang as they top out where they top out, and go downstream to smaller public companies who are growing and where you can deliver real value. Companies like snapchat doubled in 1 year, square doubled in 1 year, etc etc. If you’re already joining a trillion dollar company you need to enter as a leader to earn the top end. You’ll never see these stats because 1) you don’t gain anything from sharing and 2) it’s easy to find who you are at smaller companies.
mam2 6y ago
It's /2 on all of these if it's not FANNG. The stats doesn't make sense, it's skewed to the top.
bgirard 6y ago
Looks like it's incorrectly including the full 4 year equity grant in the yearly compensation grant.
- compthrowaway 6y ago
  Nope. The L4ish offers certainly would be far too low if that was 4 years, and these are supposedly "manually verified." The hovertext also says they explicitly divide by N.
  - bgirard 6y ago
    I only meant the top ones. There's a big discontinuity in the data and this mistake is more logical than seeing $3m equity grants that no other site can cross validate.
- fnbr 6y ago
  I think it’s a mix, where some are, and some aren’t. I’d be _very_ surprised to see a L6 making $1M/year.
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    Research scientist ladder at Google is a higher comp band than swe by, at least for lower levels, about 1 level. So an L6 RS getting high l7 swe comp isn't out of the question. That said, the person getting such a large stock grant with a lower base salary is suspicious. The other two offers for L6 are clearly correct as they are (160K/year stock is too low for L6), but that one is odd. Doesn't mean it's wrong though. For some context, initial grants are usually larger than refresh grants, and an L6 SWE (who again is in a lower band than L6 RS) can expect a >200K stock refresh. So a new hire RS at that level isn't going to get less than 200K annually (or 800K/4yr).
  - snug 6y ago
    You don't get a sign-on bonus every year either. Agreed, I'd say at most you're getting $250k/year in equity, no way L6 is getting $3.2M in equity over 4 years
lowiqengineer 6y ago
Yikes the Amazon numbers are really low...
johnward 6y ago
I would have thought these companies paid a better base salary being in such a high cost area. Also, do FAANGs typically grant more equity after the 4 year vesting period?
- thor24 6y ago
  They do grant enough to keep your comp in the similar range (but usually comp does go down). So general rule of thumb is to just switch every 4 years to get another grant :P
- fnbr 6y ago
  Yes, they do. It’s typically slightly less than what you get initially, although that can vary depending on your performance.
- filoleg 6y ago
  > Also, do FAANGs typically grant more equity after the 4 year vesting period? Yes, they typically hand it out every year with their additional stock grants/refreshes. When you start, you initially get a big dump of shares that vest over 4 years. Then every year, you get some more shares that vest over another 4 years. By the time your big initial stock grant is fully vested in 4 years, you already accumulated 4 years worth of yearly stock grants, that they pretty much replace and outnumber (in aggregate) that initial big stock grant, esp. since each year your yearly stock grant will probably be larger than the previous one. Note: that's not the case at every single FAANG. For example, MSFT (which I know specifically isn't in the FAANG abbreviation, but is still often counted as a part of it; and I know that what I am describing below holds true for Amazon too, but they have it even harder, according to my friends working there) is specifically known for those yearly grants (that usually come at the annual rewards time) being too small. I can attest from my own experience, because all of my additional stock grants pooled together over the past 3 years accumulate to less than a half of my last vest of the initial big stock grant. Even if those 3 years of accumulated stock grants were to fully vest all at once on the same day. And, mind you, my situation isn't even that bad compared to the average, because I have been hitting the rewards performance metrics significantly above the 100% target, hovering around 180-200% every single year.
- 6y ago
user5994461 6y ago
It's so odd to see a site like that in es, the top domain for Spain. Do FAANG have offices in Spain? I don't think so. The site is totally out of touch with reality, misleading younger developers who see that and think oh great that's what I will aim to after I graduate. A developer in Spain would be a lucky to have a job in the first place, for one tenth of that.
- ignoranceprior 6y ago
  It's a domain hack. The site name is "AI Paygrades", so "aipaygrad.es". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_hack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_hack Is it also misleading that so many startups are based in British Indian Ocean Territory (.io)?
- asciident 6y ago
  It's not odd at all. It's a common way to set up your website, that's been happening for decades.
richrichardsson 6y ago
On the off chance that whomever runs this website sees this (or anyone else who might know the answer): any idea how to stop getting the multiple Spanish language B2B spam every day? I also run a .es domain and it seems that simply registering a domain gets you added to a ton of shitty spam lists.
arasdean2 6y ago
This is cool, but would be better if you could see years of experience factored in as well like they have on levels: https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Machine-Learning https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Machine-Le...
autocorrect26 6y ago
Are these salaries unique to research scientist in AI only, or do FAANGs pay these type of salaries for research scientist outside of AI in those same pay grades?
- cvhashim 6y ago
  Unsure if this answers your question but a colleague of mine 2 years out of school is at a 12 person Robotics/Autonomous Vehicle startup based in SV making 160k base.
apazzolini 6y ago
The irony in needing to manually verify job salaries/offers in the AI field is just so [img-italian-chef-kiss]
bayesian_horse 6y ago
I'm trying to get started in ML/AI and data science, and by now I'd work for minimum wage. And yes, probably because my CV is screwed up.
djohnston 6y ago
I keep telling myself I enjoy living in Europe more than the U.S., but when I see these numbers...

85 points by cracker_jacks 6y ago

Interesting, basically it is 4 companies, plus DeepMind, plus some small residual. I remember looking more closely at this sector, from a UK perspective, and finding next to no well-paying jobs, never mind interesting (well-paid on the scale of this webpage). If there are some I’m dying to know! But if this is a wider trend, it is odd how not just the internet, personal data etc that are owned by FAANGs, but the market in AI jobs too.

kendallchuang 6y ago

It would be nice to see the years of experience and education for the different positions. AI/ML is a rapidly growing field the past few years so a lot of these individuals probably came from academia or different industries.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
atg_abhishek 6y ago
Agreed, without the number of years of experience (there is possibly a loose correlation with the levels indicated) it is hard to make sense of the data

woeirua 6y ago

I really wish that sites like these would branch out to more employers beyond just the FAANGs because the number of jobs in AI/ML at these employers is just a small fraction of what we see in the larger industry. You can prove that to yourself by just looking at LinkedIn. I think if we had a truly representative sampling of all people working with "AI/ML" related titles, we'd see that the the true total comp distribution is much lower, and probably just slightly better than a typical software engineer's total comp with a similar amount of experience.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago
The reality is that FAANG-type companies are the only companies large enough to pay these salaries and with enough hires to keep it anonymous. These sites are also heavy on selection bias. If someone arrives at this site with a $150K AI salary, they're not going to go to the trouble of submitting it and getting it accepted. Instead, they're going to start updating their resume and browsing job sites while they seek these higher salaries.
- woeirua 6y ago
  I don't know... Glassdoor's system seems to work pretty well for collecting this kind of data. Sure the number of reported salaries is maybe too small to say anything specific about individual companies, but in aggregate places like Glassdoor and LinkedIn could probably tell us with high certainty what the distribution looks like.
  - compthrowaway 6y ago
    In a world where (A) compensation is typically mostly in the form of liquid equity grants and (B) compensation amounts change rapidly year-on-year, Glassdoor's system vastly understates compensation in the field.
    - woeirua 6y ago
      But you have to recognize that this system is very atypical outside of FAANGs. Most large companies have very modest stock incentive programs.
      - MiroF 6y ago
        > FAANGs Do we just use FAANGs to mean every West coast software company? Because otherwise it is very typical of non-FAANGs as well.
- throw9872349872 6y ago
  Just some anecdata, I’m in ml not in faang and make more than the top end of the survey in the OP. If I were to give some guidance, I’d suggest skipping on faang as they top out where they top out, and go downstream to smaller public companies who are growing and where you can deliver real value. Companies like snapchat doubled in 1 year, square doubled in 1 year, etc etc. If you’re already joining a trillion dollar company you need to enter as a leader to earn the top end. You’ll never see these stats because 1) you don’t gain anything from sharing and 2) it’s easy to find who you are at smaller companies.

mam2 6y ago

It's /2 on all of these if it's not FANNG. The stats doesn't make sense, it's skewed to the top.

bgirard 6y ago

Looks like it's incorrectly including the full 4 year equity grant in the yearly compensation grant.

compthrowaway 6y ago
Nope. The L4ish offers certainly would be far too low if that was 4 years, and these are supposedly "manually verified." The hovertext also says they explicitly divide by N.
- bgirard 6y ago
  I only meant the top ones. There's a big discontinuity in the data and this mistake is more logical than seeing $3m equity grants that no other site can cross validate.
fnbr 6y ago
I think it’s a mix, where some are, and some aren’t. I’d be _very_ surprised to see a L6 making $1M/year.
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  Research scientist ladder at Google is a higher comp band than swe by, at least for lower levels, about 1 level. So an L6 RS getting high l7 swe comp isn't out of the question. That said, the person getting such a large stock grant with a lower base salary is suspicious. The other two offers for L6 are clearly correct as they are (160K/year stock is too low for L6), but that one is odd. Doesn't mean it's wrong though. For some context, initial grants are usually larger than refresh grants, and an L6 SWE (who again is in a lower band than L6 RS) can expect a >200K stock refresh. So a new hire RS at that level isn't going to get less than 200K annually (or 800K/4yr).
- snug 6y ago
  You don't get a sign-on bonus every year either. Agreed, I'd say at most you're getting $250k/year in equity, no way L6 is getting $3.2M in equity over 4 years

lowiqengineer 6y ago

Yikes the Amazon numbers are really low...

johnward 6y ago

I would have thought these companies paid a better base salary being in such a high cost area. Also, do FAANGs typically grant more equity after the 4 year vesting period?

thor24 6y ago
They do grant enough to keep your comp in the similar range (but usually comp does go down). So general rule of thumb is to just switch every 4 years to get another grant :P
fnbr 6y ago
Yes, they do. It’s typically slightly less than what you get initially, although that can vary depending on your performance.
filoleg 6y ago
> Also, do FAANGs typically grant more equity after the 4 year vesting period? Yes, they typically hand it out every year with their additional stock grants/refreshes. When you start, you initially get a big dump of shares that vest over 4 years. Then every year, you get some more shares that vest over another 4 years. By the time your big initial stock grant is fully vested in 4 years, you already accumulated 4 years worth of yearly stock grants, that they pretty much replace and outnumber (in aggregate) that initial big stock grant, esp. since each year your yearly stock grant will probably be larger than the previous one. Note: that's not the case at every single FAANG. For example, MSFT (which I know specifically isn't in the FAANG abbreviation, but is still often counted as a part of it; and I know that what I am describing below holds true for Amazon too, but they have it even harder, according to my friends working there) is specifically known for those yearly grants (that usually come at the annual rewards time) being too small. I can attest from my own experience, because all of my additional stock grants pooled together over the past 3 years accumulate to less than a half of my last vest of the initial big stock grant. Even if those 3 years of accumulated stock grants were to fully vest all at once on the same day. And, mind you, my situation isn't even that bad compared to the average, because I have been hitting the rewards performance metrics significantly above the 100% target, hovering around 180-200% every single year.
6y ago

user5994461 6y ago

It's so odd to see a site like that in es, the top domain for Spain. Do FAANG have offices in Spain? I don't think so. The site is totally out of touch with reality, misleading younger developers who see that and think oh great that's what I will aim to after I graduate. A developer in Spain would be a lucky to have a job in the first place, for one tenth of that.

ignoranceprior 6y ago
It's a domain hack. The site name is "AI Paygrades", so "aipaygrad.es". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_hack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_hack Is it also misleading that so many startups are based in British Indian Ocean Territory (.io)?
asciident 6y ago
It's not odd at all. It's a common way to set up your website, that's been happening for decades.

richrichardsson 6y ago

On the off chance that whomever runs this website sees this (or anyone else who might know the answer): any idea how to stop getting the multiple Spanish language B2B spam every day? I also run a .es domain and it seems that simply registering a domain gets you added to a ton of shitty spam lists.

arasdean2 6y ago

This is cool, but would be better if you could see years of experience factored in as well like they have on levels: https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Machine-Learning https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Machine-Le...

autocorrect26 6y ago

Are these salaries unique to research scientist in AI only, or do FAANGs pay these type of salaries for research scientist outside of AI in those same pay grades?

cvhashim 6y ago
Unsure if this answers your question but a colleague of mine 2 years out of school is at a 12 person Robotics/Autonomous Vehicle startup based in SV making 160k base.

apazzolini 6y ago

The irony in needing to manually verify job salaries/offers in the AI field is just so [img-italian-chef-kiss]

bayesian_horse 6y ago

I'm trying to get started in ML/AI and data science, and by now I'd work for minimum wage. And yes, probably because my CV is screwed up.

djohnston 6y ago

I keep telling myself I enjoy living in Europe more than the U.S., but when I see these numbers...