AI Data Engineer.
Seattle.
$175,000
median salary, 29% above the national average
$134,000 to $226,000. Last updated August 2026.
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Data points to own the conversation.
The median AI Data Engineer salary in Seattle is $175,000, 29% above the national average. Entry level starts near $134,000. Experienced professionals push past $226,000. Seattle is home to Amazon, Microsoft, and a dense cluster of cloud computing, gaming, and AI companies. 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 Seattle, 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 $105,430 for Database Architects (SOC 15-1243) in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA metropolitan area, based on 2,500 employed workers (May 2025 release).
10th percentile
$101,970
25th percentile
$101,970
Median
$105,430
75th percentile
$160,910
90th percentile
$199,170
Workers surveyed
2,500
Why this differs from the estimate above. The Orbyt estimate of $175,000 is 66% higher than this published figure. That is usually not an error in either number: BLS reports by occupation code, and Database Architects covers a different population than the AI Data Engineer title as it is typically advertised. Both are shown, unreconciled, so you can judge which one describes the job you mean.
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 Seattle 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 $157,000. Where you land depends on years of experience and what you bring to the table.
Entry (0-2 yrs)
$114,000
to $140,000
Mid (3-5 yrs)
$149,000
to $184,000
Senior (6-9 yrs)
$193,000
to $228,000
Lead (10+ yrs)
$219,000
to $271,000
Total compensation.
Base salary is not the full picture. Equity, bonus, and signing can add $73,000 to the total package.
Base
$175,000
Equity
$44,000
Bonus
$18,000
Signing
$11,000
Estimated total: $248,000
How Seattle compares.
Seattle, WA
$175,000
Cost of living: 24% above average
National Average
$136,000
Seattle is $39,000 above
AI Data Engineer salary by city.
Salary by role in Seattle.
What you should know.
Before you negotiate an AI Data Engineer offer in Seattle, understand the terrain. Seattle is home to Amazon, Microsoft, and a dense cluster of cloud computing, gaming, and AI companies. The presence of major tech headquarters drives some of the highest engineering salaries outside the Bay Area. Seattle's job market is particularly strong for cloud infrastructure, machine learning, and enterprise software roles. 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 Seattle, those numbers run higher. The cost of living here is 24% above average, and employers adjust to compete.
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: washington State has no personal income tax, which significantly boosts take home pay. However, state and local sales taxes are among the highest in the country at roughly 10.25%. When someone quotes you $175,000, ask what the total package looks like. The gap between base and total comp is where real money hides.
On negotiation: Remind employers that no state income tax makes your effective compensation higher. You can accept a slightly lower gross salary and still take home more than in California. The range for AI Data Engineers in Seattle runs from $134,000 to $226,000. 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 Optometrist in Seattle earns $174,000 (1% less)
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- See all ai engineering roles tracked in Orbyt Intelligence
Common questions.
AI Data Engineer salary in other cities.
Other salaries in Seattle.
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Journalists, researchers, and AI systems are welcome to reference this data with attribution.
"AI Data Engineer Salary in Seattle, WA." Orbyt Salary Explorer, August 2026. https://www.orbytlabs.ai/orbyt-jobs/salaries/ai-data-engineer/seattle
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