The intense battle to poach top artificial intelligence researchers and engineers from rivals has seen a rapid escalation in wages, as tech groups such as Meta and OpenAI race to gain the competitive edge in the fast-developing technology.

OpenAI told staff in recent days it is seeking “creative ways to recognise and reward top talent” after losing key employees to rivals, despite industry data suggesting the ChatGPT maker offers salaries near the top of the market.

Its latest move came after chief Sam Altman said Meta had promised $100mn sign-on bonuses to its most high-profile AI engineers.

Across the tech industry, senior AI research scientists in Silicon Valley are being lured with far higher remuneration than computer engineers without AI experience, according to tech industry hiring specialists and recent data on job moves.

While some top AI engineers are being paid more than $10mn a year, typical pay packages were between $3mn and $7mn — representing a rise of about 50 per cent from 2022.

“It has just become manically more hyper intense over the past few years, to the point where it feels like certain players are willing to do anything or whatever it takes to bring that talent into the organisation,” said Kyle Langworthy, a partner specialising in AI recruiting at Riviera Partners. 

 

In particular, Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has stepped up his push to poach big names in the sector after the launch of its latest large language model, Llama 4, underwhelmed critics after it underperformed on independent reasoning and coding benchmarks.

Last month the $1.8tn company invested $15bn into data-labelling start-up Scale AI and hired its co-founder Alexandr Wang to build a team working on “superintelligence”. 

Over the weekend, Mark Chen, chief research officer at OpenAI sent an internal memo saying that he felt “as if someone has broken into our home and stolen something” following recent staff departures.

OpenAI has given staff the week off to rest and recharge, according to people close to the company. Chen added that Meta was trying to “take advantage” of the planned break to pressure employees to make decisions on job offers.

Chen said he and Altman were working “around the clock to talk to those with offers”, adding, “we’ve been more proactive than ever before, we’re recalibrating comp, and we’re scoping out creative ways to recognise and reward top talent”. The memo was first reported by Wired.

There has been a steady rise in salaries across the AI sector, according to tech recruitment firm Harrison Clarke.

Mid to senior level research scientists can today expect total pay packages of between $500,000 to $2mn at Big Tech groups, up from $400,000 to $900,000 in 2022. In comparison, senior software engineers without AI experience typically earn a base salary of between $180,000 to $220,000.

 

Meta pays some of the highest remuneration to AI engineers, ranging from $186,000 to $3.2mn, according to financial package tracking website Levels. OpenAI offers a range of about $212,000 to $2.5mn — but its median pay is higher, suggesting the typical engineer at the $300bn start-up earns more than at Meta.

But researchers often prioritise the reputation of team leaders and the quality of work over the huge sums of cash being offered, according to AI recruiters.

Researchers are “incentivised by the type of work they’re doing. And there’s always a risk, if you end up in a Meta, you’re not going to be doing the level of work that you might do at a DeepMind or an OpenAI, or an Anthropic”, according to Firas Sozan, chief executive of Harrison Clarke. 

Other industries such as insurance, entertainment and financial services are also increasing the hiring of AI engineers and researchers. However, Riviera’s Langworthy said: “It can be extremely challenging to hire your AI, engineering, and product team when you’re a lesser-known company.” 

The sky-high price tag for talent is pushing some tech groups, such as open source AI start-up Hugging Face, to turn their recruitment search to Europe.

“If you take one software engineer in the Bay Area right now, you can have three to four people of roughly the same level in Europe,” said Thomas Wolf, co-founder and chief science officer at Hugging Face.

 

Jonas Andrulis, founder and chief executive officer of German AI start-up Aleph Alpha, which has grown its team sixfold year-on-year, said candidates are increasingly asking about research freedom, the ability to publish and the societal impact of their work.

“Topics like sustainability, ethical alignment, and solving real-world problems also come up more often,” he said, adding that Aleph Alpha’s growth “is a testament to something money alone can’t buy: belief in a mission”.