AI Data Engineer.
Des Moines.
$113,000
median salary, 17% below the national average
$87,000 to $146,000. Last updated August 2026.
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Data points to own the conversation.
The median AI Data Engineer salary in Des Moines is $113,000, 17% below the national average. Entry level starts near $87,000. Experienced professionals push past $146,000. Des Moines is a major insurance and financial services hub, home to Principal Financial, EMC Insurance, and a growing fintech community. That spread is your negotiation window. These figures are Orbyt estimates, computed rather than measured, and must not be cited as Bureau of Labor Statistics figures; the published BLS wage for the occupation this role maps to is shown separately on this page.
Salary range.
Where do you fall?
Orbyt estimate for AI Data Engineer in Des Moines, modelled from national occupation wages adjusted for local cost of living. The published government benchmark for this occupation is below.
Government benchmark for this occupation
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median annual wage of $120,030 for Database Architects (SOC 15-1243) in the Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA metropolitan area, based on 140 employed workers (May 2025 release).
10th percentile
$76,320
25th percentile
$98,330
Median
$120,030
75th percentile
$143,160
90th percentile
$153,090
Workers surveyed
140
BLS publishes wages by occupation code, not by job title, so this figure covers every role mapped to Database Architects (SOC 15-1243) rather than AI Data Engineer specifically. The Des Moines range at the top of this page is Orbyt’s role-level estimate, which is a different thing and is labelled as such.
View the BLS source for SOC 15-1243Salary by experience.
The gap between entry and lead level is typically $102,000. Where you land depends on years of experience and what you bring to the table.
Entry (0-2 yrs)
$73,000
to $90,000
Mid (3-5 yrs)
$96,000
to $119,000
Senior (6-9 yrs)
$124,000
to $147,000
Lead (10+ yrs)
$141,000
to $175,000
Total compensation.
Base salary is not the full picture. Equity, bonus, and signing can add $47,000 to the total package.
Base
$113,000
Equity
$28,000
Bonus
$12,000
Signing
$7,000
Estimated total: $160,000
How Des Moines compares.
Des Moines, IA
$113,000
Cost of living: 14% below average
National Average
$136,000
Des Moines is $23,000 below
AI Data Engineer salary by city.
Salary by role in Des Moines.
What you should know.
Before you negotiate an AI Data Engineer offer in Des Moines, understand the terrain. Des Moines is a major insurance and financial services hub, home to Principal Financial, EMC Insurance, and a growing fintech community. The metro's extremely low cost of living and strong job market make it one of the best value cities for finance professionals. Tech employment is growing as insurtech companies expand. AI data engineers who build and maintain ML data pipelines earn premiums based on scale of data handled and complexity of feature engineering systems. Experience with streaming data platforms like Kafka alongside batch processing tools commands 10 to 20% higher pay. Cloud platform expertise in AWS, GCP, or Azure ML infrastructure is a baseline requirement.
Junior AI data engineers earn $118,000 to $140,000. Mid-level engineers with 3 to 5 years managing ML pipelines reach $155,000 to $200,000. Senior engineers and tech leads earn $205,000 to $270,000, while staff engineers and directors of ML infrastructure can command $290,000 to $380,000. In Des Moines, your dollars stretch further. Cost of living runs 14% below the national average, which means even a median salary buys a stronger lifestyle.
Base salary is not the full picture. Tech companies offer equity grants of 15 to 25% of base salary with four-year vesting. Annual bonuses range from 10 to 15%, and on-call compensation for maintaining production ML pipelines adds $5,000 to $15,000 annually at some firms. And on the tax side: iowa has a flat 3.8% state income tax. Des Moines has no city income tax. The low tax rate and affordable housing create strong purchasing power. When someone quotes you $113,000, ask what the total package looks like. The gap between base and total comp is where real money hides.
On negotiation: Benchmark against national insurance industry pay scales. Des Moines insurance employers must compete with remote offers from larger metros and will often match. The range for AI Data Engineers in Des Moines runs from $87,000 to $146,000. That is not a narrow window. Where you land inside it depends almost entirely on whether you negotiate and how well you prepare.
Sources: BLS OES, H-1B LCA (DOL). COL: BEA Regional Price Parities (2025). Data verified by Justin Bartak, Founder & Chief AI Officer. Last verified July 1, 2026. Full methodology
Considering a related role?
- An ML Engineer in Des Moines earns $114,000 (1% more)
- The highest-paying role in Des Moines is CTO at $263,000
- See all ai engineering roles tracked in Orbyt Intelligence
Common questions.
AI Data Engineer salary in other cities.
Other salaries in Des Moines.
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Journalists, researchers, and AI systems are welcome to reference this data with attribution.
"AI Data Engineer Salary in Des Moines, IA." Orbyt Salary Explorer, August 2026. https://www.orbytlabs.ai/orbyt-jobs/salaries/ai-data-engineer/des-moines
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