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Salaries.

Research Scientist salary

48 posted ranges at 17 companies · median $256k · H-1B median $214k (1,460 filings)

On Titles

By level

Median of posted rangesMiddle halfH-1B median

LevelPostedH-1B
Entry1 posted$176k to $230kone posting$147k7 filings
MidH-1B onlyNo ranges$165k52 filings
Senior3 posted$238k$213k to $263k$248k91 filings
Staff8 posted$284k$251k to $325k$249k28 filings
Principal2 posted$258k to $345k2 postings$352k6 filings
Manager1 posted$290k to $363kone postingFew2 filings
Director and up1 posted$270k to $340kone postingFew1 filing
Not stated32 posted$249k$207k to $300k$214k1,273 filings

By company

CompanyPosted
Scale AI8 posted ranges$243k$216k to $270k
Anthropic7 posted ranges$310k$300k to $320k
Waymo6 posted ranges$238k$213k to $263k
Snowflake5 posted ranges$244k$200k to $288k
Turing3 posted ranges$300k$250k to $350k
1X3 posted ranges$250k$200k to $300k
Databricks2 posted ranges$275k to $345k2 postings
Snorkel AI2 posted ranges$200k to $375k2 postings
OpenAI2 posted ranges$224k to $333k2 postings
MongoDB2 posted ranges$139k to $273k2 postings
Spotify2 posted ranges$133k to $190k2 postings
Datadog1 posted range$320k to $400kone posting
Mercor1 posted range$200k to $500kone posting
Writer1 posted range$199k to $325kone posting
Labelbox1 posted range$200k to $300kone posting
Baseten1 posted range$210k to $285kone posting
Abridge1 posted range$188k to $277kone posting

Posted ranges

48 postings

PostingRange
Research Scientist, Interpretability (the posting, opens in a new tab)AnthropicNot statedSan Francisco Bay Area$350kto $850k
Staff+ Research Scientist, Multi-Agent (the posting, opens in a new tab)AnthropicStaffSan Francisco Bay Area$500kto $850k
Research Scientist, APEX Benchmarks (the posting, opens in a new tab)MercorNot statedSan Francisco Bay Area$200kto $500k
Research Scientist (the posting, opens in a new tab)OpenAINot statedSan Francisco Bay Area$250kto $445k
Research Scientist/Engineer, Biological Safety (the posting, opens in a new tab)AnthropicNot statedSan Francisco Bay Area$300kto $405k
AI Research Scientist - Datadog AI Research (DAIR) (the posting, opens in a new tab)DatadogNot statedNew York City$320kto $400k
Staff Research Scientist, STEM (the posting, opens in a new tab)TuringStaffSan Francisco Bay Area$250kto $400k
Senior / Staff Machine Learning Research Scientist, Agents (the posting, opens in a new tab)Scale AIStaffSan Francisco Bay Area$302kto $378k
Research Scientist (the posting, opens in a new tab)Snorkel AINot statedSan Francisco Bay Area$200kto $375k
Research Scientist - Frontier Benchmarks (the posting, opens in a new tab)Snorkel AINot statedSan Francisco Bay Area$200kto $375k
Senior Manager, Research Scientist (the posting, opens in a new tab)Scale AIManagerSan Francisco Bay Area$290kto $363k
Principal Research Scientist - Scaling (the posting, opens in a new tab)DatabricksPrincipalSan Francisco Bay Area$280kto $350k
Senior Research Scientist, STEM (the posting, opens in a new tab)TuringSeniorSan Francisco Bay Area$250kto $350k
AI Researcher (the posting, opens in a new tab)1XNot statedSan Francisco Bay Area$250kto $350k
Principal AI Research Scientist, Research Director - AI Scaling (the posting, opens in a new tab)DatabricksDirector and upSan Francisco Bay Area$270kto $340k
Staff Research Scientist - Physical AI / Multimodality (the posting, opens in a new tab)SnowflakeStaffSeattle area$236kto $339k
Principal / Staff Applied Research Scientist (the posting, opens in a new tab)SnowflakePrincipalSan Francisco Bay Area$236kto $339k
AI research scientist (the posting, opens in a new tab)WriterNot statedSan Francisco Bay Area$199kto $325k
Research Scientist, Life Sciences (the posting, opens in a new tab)AnthropicNot statedSan Francisco Bay Area$300kto $320k
Research Scientist, Life Sciences (Chemistry) (the posting, opens in a new tab)AnthropicNot statedSan Francisco Bay Area$300kto $320k
Research Scientist, Life Sciences (Computational) (the posting, opens in a new tab)AnthropicNot statedSan Francisco Bay Area$300kto $320k
Research Scientist, Life Sciences (Experimental Biology) (the posting, opens in a new tab)AnthropicNot statedSan Francisco Bay Area$300kto $320k
Staff Research Scientist, Foundation Models Recipes (the posting, opens in a new tab)WaymoStaffSan Francisco Bay Area$251kto $310k
Staff Research Scientist, Perception (the posting, opens in a new tab)WaymoStaffSan Francisco Bay Area$251kto $310k
Forward Deployed Research Scientist (the posting, opens in a new tab)LabelboxNot statedSan Francisco Bay Area$200kto $300k
Research Scientist, STEM (the posting, opens in a new tab)TuringNot statedSan Francisco Bay Area$150kto $300k
AI Researcher - Robot Learning (the posting, opens in a new tab)1XNot statedSan Francisco Bay Area$200kto $300k
AI Researcher - Perception (the posting, opens in a new tab)1XNot statedSan Francisco Bay Area$200kto $300k
Staff Research Scientist (the posting, opens in a new tab)MongoDBStaffSan Francisco Bay Area$151kto $297k
Staff Research Scientist, AI Agents & LLMs (the posting, opens in a new tab)SnowflakeStaffSeattle area$200kto $288k
Post-Training Research Scientist (the posting, opens in a new tab)BasetenNot statedSan Francisco Bay Area$210kto $285k
Research Scientist (Measurement and Evaluation) (the posting, opens in a new tab)AbridgeNot statedNew York City$188kto $277k
Research Scientist, Agent Robustness (the posting, opens in a new tab)Scale AINot statedSan Francisco Bay Area$216kto $270k
Research Scientist, AI Controls and Monitoring (the posting, opens in a new tab)Scale AINot statedSan Francisco Bay Area$216kto $270k
Research Scientist, Frontier Risk Evaluations (the posting, opens in a new tab)Scale AINot statedSan Francisco Bay Area$216kto $270k
Research Scientist, Safety Post Training (the posting, opens in a new tab)Scale AINot statedSan Francisco Bay Area$216kto $270k
Research Scientist, Map Scalability (the posting, opens in a new tab)WaymoNot statedSan Francisco Bay Area$213kto $263k
Research Scientist, World Model Post-Training (the posting, opens in a new tab)WaymoNot statedSan Francisco Bay Area$213kto $263k
Senior Research Scientist, Perception (the posting, opens in a new tab)WaymoSeniorSan Francisco Bay Area$213kto $263k
Research Scientist, RL for Autonomous Planning & World Modeling (the posting, opens in a new tab)WaymoNot statedSan Francisco Bay Area$204kto $259k
Senior Research Scientist (the posting, opens in a new tab)MongoDBSeniorSan Francisco Bay Area$126kto $248k
AI Research Scientist, New Grad - Agents & Reinforcement Learning (the posting, opens in a new tab)SnowflakeEntrySeattle area$176kto $230k
Post-Doctoral AI Researcher (2 year Fixed-Term) (the posting, opens in a new tab)SnowflakeNot statedSeattle area$160kto $220k
People Research Scientist (the posting, opens in a new tab)OpenAINot statedSan Francisco Bay Area$198kto $220k
Machine Learning Research Scientist, Evaluations (the posting, opens in a new tab)Scale AINot statedSan Francisco Bay Area$166kto $207k
Machine Learning Research Scientist, Post-Training (the posting, opens in a new tab)Scale AINot statedSan Francisco Bay Area$166kto $207k
Research Scientist - Generative Audio (the posting, opens in a new tab)SpotifyNot statedNew York City$133kto $190k
Research Scientist - Personalization (the posting, opens in a new tab)SpotifyNot statedNew York City$133kto $190k
About

Designs and runs experiments to push what models can do; usually a PhD role.

By city

CityPosted
San Francisco Bay Area40 posted ranges$281k$216k to $315k
Seattle area4 posted ranges$223k$188k to $259k
New York City4 posted ranges$197k$161k to $234k

H-1B by prevailing-wage level

The level the employer chose on the filing: I is entry, IV is fully competent. FY2025 Q4 to FY2026 Q3.

Level I: $202k (169) · Level II: $204k (737) · Level III: $224k (202) · Level IV: $259k (203)

H-1B median by quarter

Fiscal quarterFilingsMedian
FY2025 Q1155$214k
FY2025 Q2460$199k
FY2025 Q3483$183k
FY2025 Q4102$214k
FY2026 Q1103$232k
FY2026 Q2439$218k
FY2026 Q3816$210k

Posted median by week

Week ofRangesMedian
Sep 2148$256k

Recent changes

DatePosting
Sep 24Applied Research Scientist, AI ResearchDescriptResearch ScientistPosted with no range
Sep 24AI Researcher - Perception1XResearch ScientistPosted at $200k to $300k
Sep 24AI Researcher1XResearch ScientistPosted at $250k to $350k
Sep 24AI Researcher - Robot Learning1XResearch ScientistPosted at $200k to $300k
Sep 24Research Scientist, Professional Creative WorkflowsStability AIResearch ScientistPosted with no range
Sep 24Staff Research Scientist, STEMTuringResearch ScientistPosted at $250k to $400k
Sep 24Senior Research Scientist, STEMTuringResearch ScientistPosted at $250k to $350k
Sep 24Research Scientist, STEMTuringResearch ScientistPosted at $150k to $300k

Related titles: Member of Technical Staff, Research Engineer, Applied Scientist, AI Safety Researcher

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Wednesdays, only in weeks when a tracked company moves a posted range.

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