ML Engineer salary in San Francisco.
Live salary data from Adzuna, calibrated against Hustle Report member submissions. Updated daily.
The 25 / 50 / 75 percentile band.
25th percentile
$95,500
Median (50th)
$127,000
Calibrated estimate
75th percentile
$178,000
Percentiles describe a snapshot of advertised salaries. Real take-home depends on tax band, pension contributions and bonuses. Hustle Report members can plug their actual numbers into the in-app calculator for a precise picture.
ML Engineer market in San Francisco.
ML engineers split into two markets in 2026: traditional MLOps (training pipelines, feature stores, model serving) and LLM-adjacent (RAG, agents, eval). The LLM segment commands a 25-50% premium over the headline median; senior contractors regularly bill £900-£1,400/day.
San Francisco specifically: San Francisco remains the highest-paid tech market globally. Cash base salaries lead the country; equity (RSUs, options) typically adds 30-100% to total comp. The contract day-rate market is the deepest in the world for senior engineering and AI roles.
Members in this role typically add $14,200/year.
Modeled on a conservative 4 hours/week of contract work at the role's implied hourly equivalent ($71/hr). The Hustle Report Monday editorial finds the briefs and ranks them by fit so the time stays small.
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