AI Engineering Roles · Des Moines, IA
AI Engineering Roles salary in Des Moines.
321 roles tracked. Median $114,380. 14% below national.
$29,240
Low
$114,380
Median
$298,420
High
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.
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.
Benchmark against national insurance industry pay scales. Des Moines insurance employers must compete with remote offers from larger metros and will often match.
AI Engineering Roles ranked by pay in Des Moines.
RoleLowMedianHigh
Machine Learning Director$195,220$229,620$298,420AI Protein Structure Specialist$147,920$189,200$245,960AI Technical Lead$154,800$180,600$217,580ML Technical Lead$154,800$180,600$217,580Staff AI Engineer$154,800$180,600$217,580Principal AI Engineer$154,800$180,600$217,580Staff AI Agent Engineer$154,800$180,600$217,580Principal AI Agent Engineer$154,800$180,600$217,580Staff AI Agent Architect$154,800$180,600$217,580Principal AI Agent Architect$154,800$180,600$217,580Staff AI Compiler Engineer$154,800$180,600$217,580Principal AI Compiler Engineer$154,800$180,600$217,580Lead Radiology AI Engineer$154,800$180,600$217,580Lead KYC/AML Engineer$154,800$180,600$217,580Lead Contract AI Developer$154,800$180,600$217,580Staff ML Engineer$146,200$179,740$232,200Principal ML Engineer$146,200$179,740$232,200Staff NLP Engineer$146,200$179,740$232,200Principal NLP Engineer$146,200$179,740$232,200Staff LLM Engineer$146,200$179,740$232,200Principal LLM Engineer$146,200$179,740$232,200EV Battery AI Optimization Engineer$137,600$176,300$229,620AI Business Development Manager$116,100$168,560$227,900Route Optimization AI Specialist$127,280$163,400$212,420Humanoid Robotics Engineer$120,400$161,680$213,280Senior AI Chip Designer$143,620$159,100$178,020AI Inventory Optimization Specialist$120,400$154,800$201,240AI Data Labeling Manager$110,940$147,060$191,780AI Transformation Officer$110,940$147,060$191,780AI Environment Manager$110,940$147,060$191,780Model Registry Manager$110,940$147,060$191,780Engineering Manager, AI$110,940$147,060$191,780Prompt Operations Manager$110,940$147,060$191,780AI Agent Operations Manager$110,940$147,060$191,780AI Manager$110,940$147,060$191,780Machine Learning Manager$110,940$147,060$191,780AI Transformation Lead$122,980$146,200$182,320AI Operations Lead$111,800$146,200$189,200AI Adoption Lead$122,980$146,200$182,320AI Change Management Lead$122,980$146,200$182,320Senior AI Engineer$126,420$145,340$168,560Senior AI Agent Engineer$126,420$145,340$168,560Senior AI Agent Architect$126,420$145,340$168,560Senior AI Compiler Engineer$126,420$145,340$168,560Senior Radiology AI Engineer$126,420$145,340$168,560Senior KYC/AML Engineer$126,420$145,340$168,560Senior Contract AI Developer$126,420$145,340$168,560Senior AI Developer$126,420$145,340$168,560Senior ML Systems Engineer$126,420$145,340$168,560AI Learning Experience Designer$110,940$141,900$184,900No-Code AI Specialist$110,940$141,900$184,900Senior ML Engineer$110,940$134,160$163,400Senior NLP Engineer$110,940$134,160$163,400Senior LLM Engineer$110,940$134,160$163,400Senior Azure AI Engineer$110,940$134,160$163,400Senior GCP ML Engineer$110,940$134,160$163,400AI Hardware/Chip Design Engineer$94,600$133,300$163,400AI Hardware Engineer$94,600$133,300$163,400AI Chip Designer$94,600$133,300$163,400AI Semiconductor Test Engineer$94,600$133,300$163,400AI Chipset Designer$94,600$133,300$163,400AI Chip Architect$94,600$133,300$163,400AI Accelerator Engineer$94,600$133,300$163,400AI Auditor$98,900$129,000$167,700AI Recruitment Specialist$97,180$124,700$162,540AI Transparency Lead$102,340$124,700$158,240AI Trust and Safety Lead$102,340$124,700$158,240AI Reasoning Specialist$83,420$121,260$160,820AI Agent Designer$93,740$120,400$156,520AI Vendor Manager$88,580$120,400$155,660AI Data Engineer$89,440$116,960$150,500Data Architect (AI/ML)$89,440$116,960$150,500AI Analytics Engineer$89,440$116,960$150,500Data Pipeline Engineer (ML)$89,440$116,960$150,500AI Data Quality Engineer$89,440$116,960$150,500Knowledge Graph Engineer$89,440$116,960$150,500Responsible AI Lead$97,180$116,960$147,060Machine Learning Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640ML Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640NLP Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Computer Vision Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640LLM Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640LLM Fine-Tuning Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Solutions Architect$85,140$114,380$149,640Generative AI Developer$85,140$114,380$149,640Robotics AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Agent Architect$85,140$114,380$149,640Edge AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Agentic Orchestrator$85,140$114,380$149,640Full Stack AI Developer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Systems Architect$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Application Developer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Backend Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Frontend Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Embedded AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Firmware Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI API Developer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Microservices Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Integration Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Real-Time AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Compiler Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Model Distillation Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640ML Pipeline Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Speech AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Chatbot Architect$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Localization Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640LiDAR AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Robotic Process Automation Developer$85,140$114,380$149,640Motion Planning AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Manipulation AI Specialist$85,140$114,380$149,640Robot Perception Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Agent Developer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Workflow Automation Specialist$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Simulation Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Embodied AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Neuro AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640On-Device AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Wearables Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Spatial Computing AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Personal Assistant Developer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Workflow Architect$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Fairness Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640LLM Operations Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Digital Twin Architect$85,140$114,380$149,640Developer Advocate, AI$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Accessibility Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Incident Commander$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Data Marketplace Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Knowledge Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Telecom Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Computer Vision Applications Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640NLP Applications Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Model Compression Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Search Ranking Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Embedded Systems Developer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Agent Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Systems Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640ML Solutions Architect$85,140$114,380$149,640Generative AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Evaluation Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640TinyML Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640GovTech ML Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Workflow Automation Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Prompt Operations Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Spatial Computing Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Tutor Developer$85,140$114,380$149,640Consulting ML Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Telecom ML Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Model Serving Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Training Data Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Founding ML Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Diagnostics Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Digital Therapeutics AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640MarTech AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640SaaS AI Architect$85,140$114,380$149,640Adaptive Learning AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640InsurTech AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Underwriting Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AgTech AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI NPC Designer$85,140$114,380$149,640Telecom AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640HRTech AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640GovTech AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Building Design Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640FoodTech AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Space Tech AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Digital Health AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Spatial AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640LLM Ops Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Model Registry Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Carbon Capture AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Developer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Architect$85,140$114,380$149,640Chatbot Developer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI CRM Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Customer Support Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Email Marketing Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Pricing Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Revenue Optimization Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Accounting Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Payroll Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Audit Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Expense Management Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Credit Scoring Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Lending Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Document Review Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Property Valuation Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Fleet Management Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Warehouse Optimization Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Demand Forecasting Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Quality Control Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Predictive Maintenance Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Digital Twin Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Assessment Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Recommendation Engine Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Vehicle Diagnostics Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Traffic Systems Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Network Planning Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Spectrum Optimization Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Claims Adjudication Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Visual Search Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Store Analytics Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Demand Planning Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Coaching Systems Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Recipe Recommendation Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Talent Matching Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Workforce Planning Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Generative AI Solutions Architect$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Agent Solutions Architect$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Agent Integration Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Enterprise AI Agent Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Workflow Designer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Process Automation Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Freelance AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640OpenAI API Developer$85,140$114,380$149,640Agentic AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Copilot Developer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Assistant Developer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Chatbot Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Search Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Benchmarking Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Document Understanding Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Code Generation Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Reasoning Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Planning Systems Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Benchmark Developer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Data Pipeline Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Experiment Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Responsible AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI 3D Generation Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Text-to-Speech AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640Speech-to-Text AI Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Dubbing Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640ML Systems Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640ML Systems Architect$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Monitoring Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Incident Response Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Compiler Optimization Engineer$85,140$114,380$149,640AI Cloud Architect$84,280$111,800$146,200AI Customer Success Engineer$86,860$111,800$145,340Senior Magento Developer$86,000$110,080$142,760AI Training Manager$78,260$109,220$151,360AI Incident Response Analyst$74,820$107,500$141,900AI Privacy Engineer$74,820$107,500$141,900AI Enablement & Literacy Lead$86,000$105,780$137,600AI/GenAI Sales Engineer$73,960$104,920$141,900AI Sales Engineer$73,960$104,920$141,900Solutions Engineer, AI$73,960$104,920$141,900AI Solutions Engineer$73,960$104,920$141,900AI Pre-Sales Engineer$73,960$104,920$141,900AI Customer Engineer$73,960$104,920$141,900AI Field Engineer$73,960$104,920$141,900AI Demo Engineer$73,960$104,920$141,900Robotics Engineer$69,660$101,480$135,880AI Trainer / RLHF Specialist$67,080$97,180$139,320AI Training Data Specialist$67,080$97,180$139,320Deep Learning Engineer$67,080$97,180$139,320AI/ML Data Analyst$67,080$97,180$139,320AI Business Intelligence Analyst$67,080$97,180$139,320AI Bias & Fairness Specialist$67,080$97,180$139,320AI Agricultural Specialist$67,080$97,180$139,320AI Model Evaluator$67,080$97,180$139,320Intelligence AI Analyst$67,080$97,180$139,320AI Trainer$67,080$97,180$139,320LLM Fine-Tuning Specialist$67,080$97,180$139,320LLM Evaluator$67,080$97,180$139,320AI Ad Optimization Specialist$67,080$97,180$139,320AI Claims Processing Specialist$67,080$97,180$139,320AI Contract Analysis Specialist$67,080$97,180$139,320AI Crop Analysis Specialist$67,080$97,180$139,320Network AI Optimization Specialist$67,080$97,180$139,320AI Analyst$67,080$97,180$139,320AI Consultant$67,080$97,180$139,320AI Specialist$67,080$97,180$139,320Machine Learning Analyst$67,080$97,180$139,320Machine Learning Consultant$67,080$97,180$139,320AI Model Trainer$67,080$97,180$139,320AI Data Curator$67,080$97,180$139,320AI Feature Engineer$67,080$97,180$139,320AI A/B Testing Engineer$67,080$97,180$139,320Time Series ML Engineer$67,080$97,180$139,320Graph ML Engineer$67,080$97,180$139,320Bayesian ML Engineer$67,080$97,180$139,320AI Localization Specialist$68,800$92,880$120,400AI Quality Assurance Engineer$65,360$88,580$116,960AI Testing Engineer$65,360$88,580$116,960Junior AI Engineer$75,680$88,580$102,340Junior AI Agent Engineer$75,680$88,580$102,340Junior AI Agent Architect$75,680$88,580$102,340Junior AI Compiler Engineer$75,680$88,580$102,340AI Agent QA Engineer$65,360$88,580$116,960AI Solutions Consultant$62,780$86,860$118,680AI Transformation Consultant$62,780$86,860$118,680AI Value Realization Analyst$62,780$86,860$118,680AI Roadmap Strategist$62,780$86,860$118,680AI Venture Analyst$64,500$86,860$117,820AI Workforce Planner$62,780$86,860$118,680AI Business Analyst$62,780$86,860$118,680AI Change Manager$62,780$86,860$118,680AI Adoption Manager$62,780$86,860$118,680AI Cost Analyst$64,500$86,860$117,820AI FinOps Engineer$64,500$86,860$117,820Magento Developer$67,080$86,000$111,800AI Documentation Engineer$55,900$79,120$89,440AI Transportation Planner$55,040$72,240$92,880Junior ML Engineer$58,480$71,380$85,140Junior NLP Engineer$58,480$71,380$85,140Junior LLM Engineer$58,480$71,380$85,140AI Partnership Manager$49,880$69,660$98,040AI Ecosystem Manager$49,880$69,660$98,040AI Geospatial Analyst$52,460$67,080$88,580AI Regulation Specialist$48,160$67,080$93,740AI Marketing Technologist$45,580$66,220$93,740AI Market Intelligence Analyst$45,580$66,220$93,740AI Pricing Analyst$45,580$66,220$93,740AI Procurement Analyst$48,160$65,360$88,580Technical Recruiter, AI$45,580$62,780$86,860AI Annotation Lead$42,140$47,300$54,180AI Customer Support Specialist$30,100$36,980$43,860AI Trainer / Data Annotator$29,240$34,400$41,280Salaries adjusted for Des Moines cost of living (-14% vs. national). 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Common questions.
The median salary across 321 ai engineering roles tracked in Des Moines, IA is $114,380. The full range runs from $29,240 at the entry level for the lowest-paying tracked role up to $298,420 at the top of the highest-paying tracked role. Des Moines sits 14% below the national average for cost-adjusted compensation.
Machine Learning Director is the highest-paying ai engineering role in Des Moines, with a median base salary of $229,620 when adjusted for local cost of living. Total compensation including equity and bonuses runs significantly higher at top-tier employers.
Yes. Des Moines is one of the active markets for AI talent in 2026. Des Moines is a major insurance and financial services hub, home to Principal Financial, EMC Insurance, and a growing fintech community. AI Engineering Roles specifically benefit from local employer demand and the broader AI hiring boom that has pushed compensation up year over year.
Des Moines pays roughly 14% less than the national average for ai engineering roles. Top markets like San Francisco, New York, and Seattle typically pay 30-50% above national. Mid-cost metros like Austin, Denver, and Raleigh pay closer to national.
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