{"id":489517,"date":"2026-02-25T11:40:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T11:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/489517\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T11:40:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T11:40:21","slug":"openai-salaries-how-much-ai-researchers-engineers-got-paid-in-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/489517\/","title":{"rendered":"OpenAI Salaries: How Much AI Researchers, Engineers Got Paid in 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman<\/a> said the AI lab would “dramatically slow down” hiring to avoid the kind of mass layoffs that have roiled the tech industry.<\/p>\n

OpenAI is still growing. Federal filings show OpenAI continues to hire from abroad. And the company’s latest high-profile addition \u2014 OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger<\/a> \u2014 underscores that the AI talent wars are still alive and well.<\/p>\n

OpenAI’s workforce<\/a> hails from elite universities<\/a> like Stanford, MIT, and Carnegie Mellon, and they’re compensated accordingly. The company’s more than 4,000 employees receive an average of $1.5 million in stock-based compensation, The Wall Street Journal reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While OpenAI does not publicly disclose salary data, federal filings required for companies to hire foreign workers offer a window into how much it pays for key roles. The filings reflect only base salary \u2014 not stock awards or bonuses that can dramatically increase compensation.<\/p>\n

In the most recent quarter, reflecting hires between October and December 2025, OpenAI onboarded over 60 employees from overseas. That’s up from the prior quarter and suggests steady growth despite the $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa applications<\/a> imposed by the Trump administration in September.<\/p>\n

OpenAI pays at the top of the market across functions. Research scientists sit at the highest end, with base salaries ranging from $245,000 to $685,000. Engineering roles can stretch into the mid-six figures, while sales roles can command between $165,000 and $290,000.<\/p>\n

Here’s a closer look at OpenAI salaries, based on H-1B data for over 160 roles from the past four consecutive quarters.<\/p>\n

AI researcher salaries<\/p>\n

Member of Intelligence & Investigations Staff: $320,000 to $382,500<\/p>\n

Member of Technical Staff (AI Systems Engineer): $245,000 to $460,000<\/p>\n

Member of Technical Staff (Research & AI Systems): $310,000 to $460,000<\/p>\n

Member of Technical Staff (Research Engineer): $210,000 to $460,000<\/p>\n

Member of Technical Staff (Research Scientist): $245,000 to $685,000<\/p>\n

Engineer and data scientist salaries<\/p>\n

Member of Data Science Staff: $188,885 to $405,000<\/p>\n

Member of Technical Staff (Data Science): $255,000 to $490,000<\/p>\n

Member of Technical Staff (Hardware Engineer): \u200b\u200b$250,000 to $555,000<\/p>\n

Member of Technical Staff (Security Engineer): $310,000 to $325,000<\/p>\n

Member of Technical Staff (Software Developer): $325,000<\/p>\n

Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer): $170,000 to $490,000<\/p>\n

Product, program, and design staff salaries<\/p>\n

Member of Design Staff: $245,000 to $310,000<\/p>\n

Member of Product Staff (Product Management): $210,000 to $325,000<\/p>\n

Member of Program Staff: $150,000 to $355,000<\/p>\n

Sales and operations staff salaries<\/p>\n

Member of Finance Staff: $240,000 to $260,000<\/p>\n

Member of Go To Market Staff: $180,000 to $290,000<\/p>\n

Member of Go to Market Staff (Customer Success): $165,000 to $240,000<\/p>\n

Member of Go To Market Staff (Forward Deployed Engineer): $220,000<\/p>\n

Member of Go To Market Staff (Support Engineer): $235,000<\/p>\n

Member of Support and Community Staff: $180,000 to $235,000<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earlier this year, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the AI lab would “dramatically slow down” hiring to avoid…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-489517","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}