AI Engineering Roles · Detroit, MI
AI Engineering Roles salary in Detroit.
321 roles tracked. Median $119,700. 10% below national.
$30,600
Low
$119,700
Median
$312,300
High
Detroit's economy is transforming as the automotive industry pivots to electric vehicles and autonomous driving technology. Ford, GM, and a growing cluster of mobility startups are investing billions in the region. The city's low cost of living paired with rising tech salaries makes it one of the highest purchasing power metros for engineering roles.
Michigan has a flat 4.25% state income tax. Detroit adds a city income tax of 2.4% for residents. Factor the city tax into your calculations if living within city limits.
Highlight EV and autonomous vehicle expertise. Detroit employers are paying significant premiums for talent with electric vehicle, battery tech, or self driving experience.
AI Engineering Roles ranked by pay in Detroit.
RoleLowMedianHigh
Machine Learning Director$204,300$240,300$312,300AI Protein Structure Specialist$154,800$198,000$257,400AI Technical Lead$162,000$189,000$227,700ML Technical Lead$162,000$189,000$227,700Staff AI Engineer$162,000$189,000$227,700Principal AI Engineer$162,000$189,000$227,700Staff AI Agent Engineer$162,000$189,000$227,700Principal AI Agent Engineer$162,000$189,000$227,700Staff AI Agent Architect$162,000$189,000$227,700Principal AI Agent Architect$162,000$189,000$227,700Staff AI Compiler Engineer$162,000$189,000$227,700Principal AI Compiler Engineer$162,000$189,000$227,700Lead Radiology AI Engineer$162,000$189,000$227,700Lead KYC/AML Engineer$162,000$189,000$227,700Lead Contract AI Developer$162,000$189,000$227,700Staff ML Engineer$153,000$188,100$243,000Principal ML Engineer$153,000$188,100$243,000Staff NLP Engineer$153,000$188,100$243,000Principal NLP Engineer$153,000$188,100$243,000Staff LLM Engineer$153,000$188,100$243,000Principal LLM Engineer$153,000$188,100$243,000EV Battery AI Optimization Engineer$144,000$184,500$240,300AI Business Development Manager$121,500$176,400$238,500Route Optimization AI Specialist$133,200$171,000$222,300Humanoid Robotics Engineer$126,000$169,200$223,200Senior AI Chip Designer$150,300$166,500$186,300AI Inventory Optimization Specialist$126,000$162,000$210,600AI Data Labeling Manager$116,100$153,900$200,700AI Transformation Officer$116,100$153,900$200,700AI Environment Manager$116,100$153,900$200,700Model Registry Manager$116,100$153,900$200,700Engineering Manager, AI$116,100$153,900$200,700Prompt Operations Manager$116,100$153,900$200,700AI Agent Operations Manager$116,100$153,900$200,700AI Manager$116,100$153,900$200,700Machine Learning Manager$116,100$153,900$200,700AI Transformation Lead$128,700$153,000$190,800AI Operations Lead$117,000$153,000$198,000AI Adoption Lead$128,700$153,000$190,800AI Change Management Lead$128,700$153,000$190,800Senior AI Engineer$132,300$152,100$176,400Senior AI Agent Engineer$132,300$152,100$176,400Senior AI Agent Architect$132,300$152,100$176,400Senior AI Compiler Engineer$132,300$152,100$176,400Senior Radiology AI Engineer$132,300$152,100$176,400Senior KYC/AML Engineer$132,300$152,100$176,400Senior Contract AI Developer$132,300$152,100$176,400Senior AI Developer$132,300$152,100$176,400Senior ML Systems Engineer$132,300$152,100$176,400AI Learning Experience Designer$116,100$148,500$193,500No-Code AI Specialist$116,100$148,500$193,500Senior ML Engineer$116,100$140,400$171,000Senior NLP Engineer$116,100$140,400$171,000Senior LLM Engineer$116,100$140,400$171,000Senior Azure AI Engineer$116,100$140,400$171,000Senior GCP ML Engineer$116,100$140,400$171,000AI Hardware/Chip Design Engineer$99,000$139,500$171,000AI Hardware Engineer$99,000$139,500$171,000AI Chip Designer$99,000$139,500$171,000AI Semiconductor Test Engineer$99,000$139,500$171,000AI Chipset Designer$99,000$139,500$171,000AI Chip Architect$99,000$139,500$171,000AI Accelerator Engineer$99,000$139,500$171,000AI Auditor$103,500$135,000$175,500AI Recruitment Specialist$101,700$130,500$170,100AI Transparency Lead$107,100$130,500$165,600AI Trust and Safety Lead$107,100$130,500$165,600AI Reasoning Specialist$87,300$126,900$168,300AI Agent Designer$98,100$126,000$163,800AI Vendor Manager$92,700$126,000$162,900AI Data Engineer$93,600$122,400$157,500Data Architect (AI/ML)$93,600$122,400$157,500AI Analytics Engineer$93,600$122,400$157,500Data Pipeline Engineer (ML)$93,600$122,400$157,500AI Data Quality Engineer$93,600$122,400$157,500Knowledge Graph Engineer$93,600$122,400$157,500Responsible AI Lead$101,700$122,400$153,900Machine Learning Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600ML Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600NLP Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Computer Vision Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600LLM Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600LLM Fine-Tuning Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Solutions Architect$89,100$119,700$156,600Generative AI Developer$89,100$119,700$156,600Robotics AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Agent Architect$89,100$119,700$156,600Edge AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Agentic Orchestrator$89,100$119,700$156,600Full Stack AI Developer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Systems Architect$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Application Developer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Backend Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Frontend Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Embedded AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Firmware Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI API Developer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Microservices Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Integration Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Real-Time AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Compiler Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Model Distillation Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600ML Pipeline Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Speech AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Chatbot Architect$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Localization Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600LiDAR AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Robotic Process Automation Developer$89,100$119,700$156,600Motion Planning AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Manipulation AI Specialist$89,100$119,700$156,600Robot Perception Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Agent Developer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Workflow Automation Specialist$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Simulation Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Embodied AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Neuro AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600On-Device AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Wearables Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Spatial Computing AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Personal Assistant Developer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Workflow Architect$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Fairness Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600LLM Operations Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Digital Twin Architect$89,100$119,700$156,600Developer Advocate, AI$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Accessibility Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Incident Commander$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Data Marketplace Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Knowledge Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Telecom Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Computer Vision Applications Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600NLP Applications Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Model Compression Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Search Ranking Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Embedded Systems Developer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Agent Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Systems Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600ML Solutions Architect$89,100$119,700$156,600Generative AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Evaluation Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600TinyML Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600GovTech ML Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Workflow Automation Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Prompt Operations Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Spatial Computing Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Tutor Developer$89,100$119,700$156,600Consulting ML Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Telecom ML Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Model Serving Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Training Data Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Founding ML Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Diagnostics Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Digital Therapeutics AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600MarTech AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600SaaS AI Architect$89,100$119,700$156,600Adaptive Learning AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600InsurTech AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Underwriting Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AgTech AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI NPC Designer$89,100$119,700$156,600Telecom AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600HRTech AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600GovTech AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Building Design Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600FoodTech AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Space Tech AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Digital Health AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Spatial AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600LLM Ops Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Model Registry Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Carbon Capture AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Developer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Architect$89,100$119,700$156,600Chatbot Developer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI CRM Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Customer Support Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Email Marketing Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Pricing Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Revenue Optimization Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Accounting Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Payroll Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Audit Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Expense Management Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Credit Scoring Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Lending Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Document Review Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Property Valuation Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Fleet Management Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Warehouse Optimization Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Demand Forecasting Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Quality Control Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Predictive Maintenance Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Digital Twin Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Assessment Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Recommendation Engine Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Vehicle Diagnostics Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Traffic Systems Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Network Planning Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Spectrum Optimization Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Claims Adjudication Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Visual Search Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Store Analytics Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Demand Planning Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Coaching Systems Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Recipe Recommendation Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Talent Matching Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Workforce Planning Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Generative AI Solutions Architect$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Agent Solutions Architect$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Agent Integration Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Enterprise AI Agent Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Workflow Designer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Process Automation Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Freelance AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600OpenAI API Developer$89,100$119,700$156,600Agentic AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Copilot Developer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Assistant Developer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Chatbot Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Search Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Benchmarking Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Document Understanding Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Code Generation Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Reasoning Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Planning Systems Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Benchmark Developer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Data Pipeline Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Experiment Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Responsible AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI 3D Generation Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Text-to-Speech AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600Speech-to-Text AI Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Dubbing Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600ML Systems Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600ML Systems Architect$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Monitoring Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Incident Response Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Compiler Optimization Engineer$89,100$119,700$156,600AI Cloud Architect$88,200$117,000$153,000AI Customer Success Engineer$90,900$117,000$152,100Senior Magento Developer$90,000$115,200$149,400AI Training Manager$81,900$114,300$158,400AI Incident Response Analyst$78,300$112,500$148,500AI Privacy Engineer$78,300$112,500$148,500AI Enablement & Literacy Lead$90,000$110,700$144,000AI/GenAI Sales Engineer$77,400$109,800$148,500AI Sales Engineer$77,400$109,800$148,500Solutions Engineer, AI$77,400$109,800$148,500AI Solutions Engineer$77,400$109,800$148,500AI Pre-Sales Engineer$77,400$109,800$148,500AI Customer Engineer$77,400$109,800$148,500AI Field Engineer$77,400$109,800$148,500AI Demo Engineer$77,400$109,800$148,500Robotics Engineer$72,900$106,200$142,200AI Trainer / RLHF Specialist$70,200$101,700$145,800AI Training Data Specialist$70,200$101,700$145,800Deep Learning Engineer$70,200$101,700$145,800AI/ML Data Analyst$70,200$101,700$145,800AI Business Intelligence Analyst$70,200$101,700$145,800AI Bias & Fairness Specialist$70,200$101,700$145,800AI Agricultural Specialist$70,200$101,700$145,800AI Model Evaluator$70,200$101,700$145,800Intelligence AI Analyst$70,200$101,700$145,800AI Trainer$70,200$101,700$145,800LLM Fine-Tuning Specialist$70,200$101,700$145,800LLM Evaluator$70,200$101,700$145,800AI Ad Optimization Specialist$70,200$101,700$145,800AI Claims Processing Specialist$70,200$101,700$145,800AI Contract Analysis Specialist$70,200$101,700$145,800AI Crop Analysis Specialist$70,200$101,700$145,800Network AI Optimization Specialist$70,200$101,700$145,800AI Analyst$70,200$101,700$145,800AI Consultant$70,200$101,700$145,800AI Specialist$70,200$101,700$145,800Machine Learning Analyst$70,200$101,700$145,800Machine Learning Consultant$70,200$101,700$145,800AI Model Trainer$70,200$101,700$145,800AI Data Curator$70,200$101,700$145,800AI Feature Engineer$70,200$101,700$145,800AI A/B Testing Engineer$70,200$101,700$145,800Time Series ML Engineer$70,200$101,700$145,800Graph ML Engineer$70,200$101,700$145,800Bayesian ML Engineer$70,200$101,700$145,800AI Localization Specialist$72,000$97,200$126,000AI Quality Assurance Engineer$68,400$92,700$122,400AI Testing Engineer$68,400$92,700$122,400Junior AI Engineer$79,200$92,700$107,100Junior AI Agent Engineer$79,200$92,700$107,100Junior AI Agent Architect$79,200$92,700$107,100Junior AI Compiler Engineer$79,200$92,700$107,100AI Agent QA Engineer$68,400$92,700$122,400AI Solutions Consultant$65,700$90,900$124,200AI Transformation Consultant$65,700$90,900$124,200AI Value Realization Analyst$65,700$90,900$124,200AI Roadmap Strategist$65,700$90,900$124,200AI Venture Analyst$67,500$90,900$123,300AI Workforce Planner$65,700$90,900$124,200AI Business Analyst$65,700$90,900$124,200AI Change Manager$65,700$90,900$124,200AI Adoption Manager$65,700$90,900$124,200AI Cost Analyst$67,500$90,900$123,300AI FinOps Engineer$67,500$90,900$123,300Magento Developer$70,200$90,000$117,000AI Documentation Engineer$58,500$82,800$93,600AI Transportation Planner$57,600$75,600$97,200Junior ML Engineer$61,200$74,700$89,100Junior NLP Engineer$61,200$74,700$89,100Junior LLM Engineer$61,200$74,700$89,100AI Partnership Manager$52,200$72,900$102,600AI Ecosystem Manager$52,200$72,900$102,600AI Geospatial Analyst$54,900$70,200$92,700AI Regulation Specialist$50,400$70,200$98,100AI Marketing Technologist$47,700$69,300$98,100AI Market Intelligence Analyst$47,700$69,300$98,100AI Pricing Analyst$47,700$69,300$98,100AI Procurement Analyst$50,400$68,400$92,700Technical Recruiter, AI$47,700$65,700$90,900AI Annotation Lead$44,100$49,500$56,700AI Customer Support Specialist$31,500$38,700$45,900AI Trainer / Data Annotator$30,600$36,000$43,200Salaries adjusted for Detroit cost of living (-10% vs. national). Click any role for the full role-city breakdown including equity, bonuses, and city-specific negotiation tips.
Common questions.
The median salary across 321 ai engineering roles tracked in Detroit, MI is $119,700. The full range runs from $30,600 at the entry level for the lowest-paying tracked role up to $312,300 at the top of the highest-paying tracked role. Detroit sits 10% below the national average for cost-adjusted compensation.
Machine Learning Director is the highest-paying ai engineering role in Detroit, with a median base salary of $240,300 when adjusted for local cost of living. Total compensation including equity and bonuses runs significantly higher at top-tier employers.
Yes. Detroit is one of the active markets for AI talent in 2026. Detroit's economy is transforming as the automotive industry pivots to electric vehicles and autonomous driving technology. AI Engineering Roles specifically benefit from local employer demand and the broader AI hiring boom that has pushed compensation up year over year.
Detroit pays roughly 10% 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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