Anthropic vs xAI salary
The median posted base pay for tech jobs is $400K a year at Anthropic and $205K a year at xAI. The median at Anthropic is 95% above the median at xAI. The numbers come from 281 open jobs at Anthropic and 68 open jobs at xAI with posted pay.
Anthropic and xAI: all tech jobs
Anthropic: The middle half of the jobs is from $328K to $445K. xAI: The middle half of the jobs is from $183K to $255K.
| Measure | Anthropic | xAI |
|---|---|---|
| Median posted base pay | $400K | $205K |
| Middle half of the jobs | $328K to $445K | $183K to $255K |
| Median posted range | $320K to $435K | $160K to $258K |
| 10th to 90th percentile | $295K to $565K | $149K to $289K |
| Open jobs with posted pay | 281 | 68 |
Anthropic vs xAI pay by job type
The median for each job type that has 3 or more jobs with posted pay at both companies. The difference compares Anthropic with xAI. One job can have more than one job type.
| Job type | Median at Anthropic | Median at xAI | Difference | Jobs at Anthropic | Jobs at xAI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ML / AI engineering | $403K | $255K | +58% | 143 | 26 |
| Inference & ML systems | $438K | $255K | +72% | 79 | 37 |
| Software engineering | $403K | $205K | +96% | 76 | 26 |
| Infra, platform & SRE | $403K | $255K | +58% | 32 | 14 |
| Security engineering | $363K | $149K | +143% | 32 | 10 |
| Data engineering | $363K | $197K | +84% | 7 | 5 |
Anthropic vs xAI pay by level
The median for each level in the job title that has 3 or more jobs with posted pay at both companies.
| Level | Median at Anthropic | Median at xAI | Difference | Jobs at Anthropic | Jobs at xAI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Level not stated | $363K | $183K | +99% | 181 | 32 |
| Senior | $328K | $255K | +28% | 11 | 36 |
Open jobs with the highest posted pay
The five open jobs with the highest posted pay at each company. Each range is the base pay that the company posted.
Anthropic
- Engineering Manager, GPU (ML Accelerator)$500K to $850K
- Pre-training Data Infrastructure Engineer$500K to $850K
- Research Engineer / Performance Engineer, RL Distributed Systems$500K to $850K
- Research Engineer / Research Scientist, RL Frontiers$500K to $850K
- Research Engineer / Scientist, Pre-training$500K to $850K
xAI
- Software Engineer, Evaluation Infrastructure$180K to $440K
- Lead Engineer, AI Infrastructure (C++, C)$220K to $357K
- Sr. Model Engineer, Mid-Training$220K to $357K
- Sr. Model Engineer, Post-Training & RL$220K to $357K
- Sr. Model Engineer, RL Training Framework$220K to $357K
More about Anthropic and xAI
Anthropic
- More pay pages:
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- Check an offer
Questions
Which company pays more, Anthropic or xAI?
Anthropic has the higher median posted base pay: $400K a year, against $205K at xAI. The median at Anthropic is 95% above the median at xAI.
What do ML / AI engineering jobs pay at Anthropic and xAI?
The median posted base pay for ML / AI engineering jobs is $403K at Anthropic (143 jobs) and $255K at xAI (26 jobs).
Does this pay include stock or a bonus?
No. The numbers are the base pay ranges that the companies posted in their open jobs. Stock, a bonus and benefits are not in the numbers. Total pay at these companies can be much higher than base pay.
Where does the data come from?
We read each open job from the job board of Anthropic and of xAI, and we check each job every day. We use only jobs that state a yearly pay range in US dollars.
How we compute these numbers
We read each job from the job board of the company and check it every day. We use only open jobs that state a yearly pay range in US dollars. One job counts with the middle point of its posted range. The median is the middle value of these amounts: half of the jobs are above it and half are below it.
We do not use a range with a bottom below $15,000, a top above $1,000,000, or a top that is more than four times the bottom. A company needs 20 or more open jobs with posted pay to be in a comparison. A job type or a level needs 3 or more jobs at both companies to be a row. Jobs under the same company name count as one company.
The numbers are base pay as the company posted it. They are not the pay of a person, and they do not include stock, a bonus or benefits. For the stock and the bonus that people reported, see Reported pay.