Titlesby GlyphMachine Learning Engineer job title trend since Apr 2011
Engineering · Established · in 4.0% of HN hiring posts · 331 open roles at 85 companies · median $255k
Trains, ships and maintains machine learning models in production.
first seen before 2011, Hacker Newstook off Jun 2017
Why it exists
Written from the sources below
As companies moved models from notebooks into products, the data scientist's job split into narrower roles. Harvard Business Review's 2022 follow-up to its 2012 essay lists machine learning engineer first among the jobs that took over parts of it, and Google's 2015 paper showed that most of a production ML system is engineering around the model.
- PaperHidden Technical Debt in Machine Learning SystemsNeurIPS 2015 (Google), 2015 · backs: production ML is mostly engineering around the model
- EssayIs Data Scientist Still the Sexiest Job of the 21st Century?Harvard Business Review, Jul 2022 · backs: data science split into related jobs, machine learning engineer first
Where it is posted
Sectors
- Consumer91
- Robotics and autonomy74
- Fintech38
- AI lab15
- AI infrastructure12
- AI application9
- Data platform6
- Developer tools6
Cities
- Palo Alto101
- San Francisco99
- New York44
- Seattle26
- London, United Kingdom12
- Toronto, Canada9
- Washington8
- Austin4
- Amsterdam, Netherlands4
- Zurich, Switzerland3
Countries and remote
- United States254
- Canada21
- United Kingdom16
- Netherlands5
- Poland4
- India4
- Israel4
- Germany4
- Brazil3
- Switzerland3
Remote option31%
Posted pay
Middle half $215k to $285k, median $255k from 202 postings that state a base range (USD a year).
Pay by level and city on SalariesWho is hiring for it
Open postings on their own job boards, read 5h ago| # | Company | Open roles | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 48 | ||
| 2 | 20 | ||
| 3 | 17 | ||
| 4 | 15 | ||
| 5 | 14 | ||
| 6 | 13 | ||
| 7 | 11 | ||
| 8 | 10 | ||
| 9 | 10 | ||
| 10 | 8 | ||
| 11 | 8 | ||
| 12 | 8 |
Open roles
8 of 331; company pages list the restStaff Machine Learning Engineer, AI Infrastructure
Mountain View, CA, USA; San Francisco, CA, USA; New York, NY, USA
| Role | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Software Engineer, ML Workload Platform | Canada | $175k to $325k | |
| Senior Machine Learning Engineer | Remote - USA | $214k to $225k | |
| Staff Machine Learning Engineer - Edge AI | Remote - US | $179k to $319k | |
| Staff Machine Learning Engineer - Risk | San Francisco, CA - Hybrid | $227k to $284k | |
| Manager, Machine Learning Engineer - Credit | New York City Office | $259k to $395k | |
| Staff Machine Learning Engineer, AI Infrastructure | Mountain View, CA, USA; San Francisco, CA, USA; New York, NY, USA | $251k to $310k | |
| Senior Machine Learning Engineer (Growth) | San Francisco Bay Area | $220k to $275k | |
| Principal Machine Learning Engineer - Matchmaking | San Mateo, CA, United States | $295k to $345k |
Lineage
Share of Hacker News hiring posts
2,488 posts since Apr 2011 · -11% in 6 monthsNovember 2026 11 of 207 postings, 5.3%
Related titles
AI EngineerA software engineer who builds products on top of models rather than training them.6.4% of HN posts, 12 mo · 244 open · $240k median · since Jun 2011MLOps EngineerRuns the training, serving and monitoring infrastructure that ML teams depend on.0.44% of HN posts, 12 mo · 35 open · $250k median · since Feb 2017Data ScientistUses statistics and models to answer questions with data; the "sexiest job" of 2012.2.2% of HN posts, 12 mo · 245 open · $226k median · since May 2011Applied ScientistResearch methods pointed at a product problem; Amazon made the title mainstream.0.39% of HN posts, 12 mo · 26 open · $243k median · since Feb 2016Full Stack EngineerWorks across the browser, the API and the database; the default startup hire.16% of HN posts, 12 mo · 294 open · $196k median · since Apr 2011Product EngineerA full-stack engineer who owns product decisions too, not just tickets.7.8% of HN posts, 12 mo · 109 open · $220k median · since May 2011
About this title
Trains, ships and maintains machine learning models in production.
Also counted: ML engineer, MLE
First sighting
...Alto) TellApart, Inc. is hiring Software Engineers and Machine Learning Engineers among other positions. We're a startup founded by ex-Googlers...
Median posted salary $255k from 202 postings that state a base pay range (the median of their midpoints, USD a year). Not a survey of what people earn.