AI Data Engineer.
Little Rock.
$113,000
median salary, 17% below the national average
$86,000 to $145,000. Last updated August 2026.
Get the job.
Data points to own the conversation.
An AI Data Engineer in Little Rock earns a median of $113,000 in 2026. That is 17% below the national average. The range runs from $86,000 to $145,000, and where you land depends on your experience, your skills, and how well you negotiate. AI data engineers who build and maintain ML data pipelines earn premiums based on scale of data handled and complexity of feature engineering systems. 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 Little Rock, 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 $121,490 for Database Architects (SOC 15-1243) in the Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway, AR metropolitan area, based on 100 employed workers (May 2025 release).
10th percentile
$73,010
25th percentile
$91,280
Median
$121,490
75th percentile
$136,260
90th percentile
$169,000
Workers surveyed
100
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 Little Rock 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 Little Rock compares.
Little Rock, AR
$113,000
Cost of living: 18% below average
National Average
$136,000
Little Rock is $23,000 below
AI Data Engineer salary by city.
Salary by role in Little Rock.
What you should know.
Here is what the AI Data Engineer market actually looks like in Little Rock. Little Rock's economy is driven by Walmart's nearby headquarters ecosystem, state government, healthcare, and logistics. The metro's extremely low cost of living means even moderate salaries deliver strong purchasing power. Tech jobs are growing as companies seek affordable alternatives to major metros. 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 Little Rock, your dollars stretch further. Cost of living runs 18% 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: arkansas has a top income tax rate of 4.4%. Little Rock has no city income tax. The combination of low taxes and very affordable housing creates one of the best net pay environments in the country. 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: Reference the Walmart and Tyson ecosystem when negotiating. Northwest Arkansas and Little Rock employers benchmark against national corporate pay scales. The range for AI Data Engineers in Little Rock runs from $86,000 to $145,000. 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 Little Rock earns $112,000 (1% less)
- The highest-paying role in Little Rock is CTO at $253,000
- See all ai engineering roles tracked in Orbyt Intelligence
Common questions.
AI Data Engineer salary in other cities.
Other salaries in Little Rock.
Related salary pages
Jump to nearby roles and cities most relevant to AI Data Engineers in Little Rock.
Related tools.
Do you work as an ai data engineer in Little Rock?
Your individual figure is never published. Submissions appear only as aggregate percentiles, and nothing is shown for a role and city until at least five people have reported. It is stored against your account, which is what keeps the dataset clean.
Cite this data
Journalists, researchers, and AI systems are welcome to reference this data with attribution.
"AI Data Engineer Salary in Little Rock, AR." Orbyt Salary Explorer, August 2026. https://www.orbytlabs.ai/orbyt-jobs/salaries/ai-data-engineer/little-rock
Want this data on your site? Embed the salary widget. One script tag, free forever.
Related tools