AI Data Engineer.
Portland.
$147,000
median salary, 8% above the national average
$112,000 to $189,000. Last updated August 2026.
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Data points to own the conversation.
Orbyt estimates AI Data Engineer pay in Portland at $147,000, within a range of $112,000 to $189,000. That is 8% above the national average. Portland's tech scene is anchored by Intel's semiconductor campus and a strong cluster of sportswear and creative companies including Nike and Adidas. 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 Portland, 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 $143,410 for Database Architects (SOC 15-1243) in the Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA metropolitan area, based on 560 employed workers (May 2025 release).
10th percentile
$100,820
25th percentile
$120,420
Median
$143,410
75th percentile
$161,910
90th percentile
$194,160
Workers surveyed
560
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 Portland 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 $132,000. Where you land depends on years of experience and what you bring to the table.
Entry (0-2 yrs)
$96,000
to $118,000
Mid (3-5 yrs)
$125,000
to $154,000
Senior (6-9 yrs)
$162,000
to $191,000
Lead (10+ yrs)
$184,000
to $228,000
Total compensation.
Base salary is not the full picture. Equity, bonus, and signing can add $61,000 to the total package.
Base
$147,000
Equity
$37,000
Bonus
$15,000
Signing
$9,000
Estimated total: $208,000
How Portland compares.
Portland, OR
$147,000
Cost of living: 10% above average
National Average
$136,000
Portland is $11,000 above
AI Data Engineer salary by city.
Salary by role in Portland.
What you should know.
If you are interviewing for AI Data Engineer roles in Portland, here is what you are walking into. Portland's tech scene is anchored by Intel's semiconductor campus and a strong cluster of sportswear and creative companies including Nike and Adidas. The city attracts professionals who value work life balance and sustainability. Salaries are moderate compared to Seattle, but the lower cost of living makes Portland a solid value proposition. 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 Portland, cost of living sits near the national average, so the numbers you see are roughly what you keep.
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: oregon has no sales tax, but state income tax rates climb to 9.9%. Portland adds a local arts tax and metro supportive housing tax. Factor these into your net pay calculations. When someone quotes you $147,000, ask what the total package looks like. The gap between base and total comp is where real money hides.
On negotiation: Highlight your willingness to work hybrid in Portland's tech campuses. Intel, Nike, and other major employers reward in person collaboration with higher compensation bands. The range for AI Data Engineers in Portland runs from $112,000 to $189,000. 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 LLM Engineer in Portland earns $146,000 (1% less)
- The highest-paying role in Portland is CTO at $330,000
- See all ai engineering roles tracked in Orbyt Intelligence
Common questions.
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Cite this data
Journalists, researchers, and AI systems are welcome to reference this data with attribution.
"AI Data Engineer Salary in Portland, OR." Orbyt Salary Explorer, August 2026. https://www.orbytlabs.ai/orbyt-jobs/salaries/ai-data-engineer/portland
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