Research Scientist job title trend since Apr 2011
Research · Established · in 1.4% of HN hiring posts · 70 open roles at 24 companies · median $281k · first seen Mar 2012
Who is hiring for it
Open postings on their own job boards, read 22h ago12 of 24 companies (top 12 shown)
Open roles
8 of 70; company pages list the rest| Role | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Research Scientist, World Model Post-Training WaymoMountain View, CA, USA; San Francisco, CA, USA; New York, NY, USA$213k to $263k | Waymo | Mountain View, CA, USA; San Francisco, CA, USA; New York, NY, USA | $213k to $263k |
AI research scientist WriterSan Francisco, CA$199k to $325k | Writer | San Francisco, CA | $199k to $325k |
AI Researcher - Perception 1XSan Carlos, CA$200k to $300k | 1X | San Carlos, CA | $200k to $300k |
AI Research Scientist, New Grad - Agents & Reinforcement Learning SnowflakeUS-WA-Bellevue$176k to $230k | Snowflake | US-WA-Bellevue | $176k to $230k |
Research Scientist, APEX Benchmarks MercorSan Francisco$200k to $500k | Mercor | San Francisco | $200k to $500k |
Machine Learning Research Scientist, Evaluations Scale AISan Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA; New York, NY$166k to $207k | Scale AI | San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA; New York, NY | $166k to $207k |
People Research Scientist OpenAISan Francisco$198k to $220k | OpenAI | San Francisco | $198k to $220k |
Research Scientist, Life Sciences (Chemistry) AnthropicSan Francisco, CA$300k to $320k | Anthropic | San Francisco, CA | $300k to $320k |
Share of Hacker News hiring posts
641 posts since Apr 2011 · +10% in 6 monthsSeptember 2026 4 of 256 postings, 1.6%
Related titles
About this title
Designs and runs experiments to push what models can do; usually a PhD role.
Also counted: AI researcher, ML researcher
First sighting
...each week. Small and tight-knit team (7 engineers, 2 research scientists), plenty of free food and beer, impressive customer list, $5mm+ in...
Median posted salary $281k from 48 postings that state a base pay range (the median of their midpoints, USD a year). Not a survey of what people earn.
Sources: Hacker News Who is hiring threads and about 130 public job boards, read weekly. A title's share is not the job market's size. Logos via logo.dev; trademarks belong to their owners.