AI & Machine Learning Jobs in San Francisco, CA

What does the ai & machine learning market look like in San Francisco, CA?

217 ai & machine learning positions across 122 companies. That's 28% of all jobs in San Francisco, CA. 45 (21%) are remote-friendly.

Top ai & machine learning employers in San Francisco, CA

Most common ai & machine learning titles

What do AI & Machine Learning roles pay in San Francisco, CA?

$194k median based on 177 roles with published salary data.

AI & Machine Learning jobs in San Francisco, CA: the overview

Here is what the AI and machine learning market in San Francisco actually looks like right now. There are 217 open AI and machine learning roles in San Francisco, CA across 122 companies in our current dataset. Of those, 45 (21%) are tagged remote-friendly, so you are not limited to candidates who can be in the office five days a week.

Day to day, AI and machine learning work in San Francisco, CA means cleaning and labeling data, running evaluations, and tuning prompts or pipelines until results hold up. The specifics change with the company and the seniority of the role, but that core stays the same whether you land at Amazon Web Services or a smaller firm posting one seat at a time.

Seniority of ai & machine learning roles in San Francisco, CA

Where the 217 openings sit by level. The biggest single band is senior at 60% of listings, which tells you where the San Francisco market is densest for this category.

• Entry Level: 11 roles (11%)
• Mid-Level: 9 roles (9%)
• Senior: 59 roles (60%)
• Director: 12 roles (12%)
• VP & Above: 5 roles (5%)
• C-Level: 3 roles (3%)

How to read the ai & machine learning pay numbers in San Francisco, CA

That $194k median comes from 177 San Francisco, CA postings with pay attached, spanning $39k at the low end to $550k at the top. That spread is wide on purpose: it covers entry-level seats and senior roles in the same category. AI listings skew high because the supply of qualified candidates is thin. Roles that mention production deployment, not just research, command the top of the band.

Use the median as your anchor, not the top of the range. One outlier listing can drag the maximum well above what a typical San Francisco role pays, so weigh any offer against the seniority that matches your own experience. San Francisco pay tends to move with the local cost of living, so a national average can mislead either direction.

Skills that ai & machine learning employers in San Francisco, CA look for

Across the San Francisco listings in this category, a handful of skills come up again and again:

You will not need every one for every job, but a posting that lists three or four of these is the norm. The single most-posted title here is Senior Machine Learning Engineer, so tailoring your profile toward that role pays off in San Francisco.

Who is hiring for ai & machine learning in San Francisco, CA

A few things worth knowing about who is hiring in San Francisco. The AI and machine learning roles in San Francisco, CA concentrate in a few industries: Technology, Finance & Banking, Professional Services, and Retail & E-Commerce. That mix is worth noting, because the same job title pays and operates differently inside a technology company than it does elsewhere. Amazon Web Services alone accounts for 19 of the open AI and machine learning seats (9% of the category), so a single large employer can shape the local market.

These 217 roles make up a real slice of San Francisco, CA hiring. The fastest way in is rarely the apply button. Referred candidates get hired at roughly four times the rate of cold applicants, which is why matching openings to people you already know beats blasting applications.

Career path for ai & machine learning roles

Most people in AI and machine learning move along a fairly predictable path. A typical climb in San Francisco, CA runs roughly:

1. ML or Data Engineer
2. Machine Learning Engineer
3. Senior ML Engineer
4. Staff or Principal Engineer
5. Head of AI

Few people walk every rung in order. Lateral moves between companies, especially toward a larger employer like Amazon Web Services, are how most people in San Francisco jump a level faster than waiting for an internal promotion.

Why a referral beats a cold application in San Francisco, CA

Volume is not the hard part in San Francisco. Getting noticed is. 122 companies are posting AI and machine learning roles here, and the strongest of those 217 openings draw dozens of applicants each. A referred candidate gets hired at roughly four times the rate of someone who applies cold, because the resume lands on a hiring manager's desk with a name attached. At a company like Amazon Web Services, with 19 AI and machine learning seats open, a single warm introduction can move you past the resume pile.

That is the angle InsideTrack is built around. Upload your LinkedIn connections once, and we match them against the 217 AI and machine learning openings in San Francisco, CA so you can see exactly which of these companies already has someone you know. Start with the full San Francisco board or browse other cities if you are open to relocating.

Common questions about ai & machine learning jobs in San Francisco, CA

AI & Machine Learning jobs in other cities