[cityhall]

Anyone have any insight into what the top ML people are being paid right now?

[pscsbs]

The equity packages tend to be in the tens of millions for a 4-year vest.

Source: I am a manager who has given offers to top-tier ML experts.

[foresight]

If you are a hiring manager for top-tier ML experts, why would you be trying to inflate market value with outrageous claims?

[pscsbs]

I guarantee you that my comments here will not influence the market rate for top-tier ML experts.

[senatorobama]

I feel so small.

[hueving]

Just to be clear, "tens" as in multiples of 10 million (i.e 20+ million)?

[pscsbs]

Depends how close to the "top" you are, but yes. 20-30 million/4 years is not unheard of for the very top -- comparable to an acquisition.

[bostonvaulter2]

Yes, but what is the salary. Tens of millions of stock could end up being worth $0.

[pgodzin]

At early stage startups, not at public companies like Tesla

[bostonvaulter2]

Ah, good point.

[foobarqux]

With yearly refresh?

[soldierofhayley]

No idea how you are getting downvotes, this is accurate.

[zghst]

If I fail at startup life, this is an obvious next step in my career.

[ralfd]

Your obvious next career step is to be a top-tier ML expert?

[AndrewKemendo]

500k+ for someone with a lot of experience.

300k+ for a new hire ML/CV/NLP PhD with some relevant experience.

150k+ for a new hire ML/CV/NLP MS with little to no experience

We were working with a very expert ML contractor that is doing 800k on his own from pop-up projects.

[pscsbs]

The top of the range you're quoting is for a typical Staff Software Engineer at Google/Facebook/Microsoft. "Top ML experts" garner much, much higher comp packages.

[AndrewKemendo]

These are representative of salary numbers for new hires.

Agreed though on total comp for top ML experts who have been around for a while - or the highest end.

[soldierofhayley]

Yeah these ranges are such a joke. Top new grads at Google are getting comp packages along the lines of 115 base, 450 RSUs / 4 years, 60k signing, 15% bonus these days. L5s regularly make 400k+ all in.

The obvious reality is that top people rarely talk about their comp packages, as there is no reason to rock the boat.

[SammoJ]

Are these numbers for real, and are these all Bay Area? I'm further North and pull no where near these numbers as an ML PhD with a lot of experience now in the tech industry. Have I goofed on all negotiations?

[toephu2]

Probably real, yes only Bay Area, and no not the norm for ML. First of all only a few companies can pay that much (Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Netflix, etc) and these are outliers. The average ML engineer in the Bay Area does not make 500k/yr total comp.

[chronic7ul]

ML engineer is a programmer usually with a BS in CS, sometimes​ a MS. They are, in the end, only an engineer.

The AI scientists, those with work in computer vision, natural language, and audio, developing novel networks and training methods, make at least $500K/year. I've been a data scientist and the pay (and work content) was a joke. I switched to AI and damn, work makes you think and you get paid like a mid-range NBA star.

[askafriend]

How did you make the switch from being a normal developer to doing AI specialist work?

[mbaha]

Also interested, yes.

[deepnotderp]

Fei Fei Li said Karpathy was offered more than a million out of school by an unnamed firm. One can only imagine what people like Alex Graves Ann's Nando get paid...