[achompas]

Yeah, I strongly believe companies haven't (or aren't willing to) figure(d) out the IC track problem for data people in the way they've figured it out for engineers. Part of me wonders if it even makes sense for them to figure it out, if they're not an Uber/Netflix/Amazon with a strong need for advanced ML abilities.

It sounds like you're a principal/lead/post-senior ML engineer; at that level, you can easily command more than $140k but you have fewer options to apply those skills at companies that really need them (because few companies actually need them).

I don't know. It's tough. I agree that it might be a terrible time to work in ML/computational stats because of stuff like this.