Loading the job postings and counting them…
Loading the job postings and counting them…
AI Career Compass · role
Turns research ideas into experiments and working code at scale. Training runs, experiment tooling, evaluations and the engineering behind research results.
Measured Research engineers are 98 of the 1,694 AI postings in our tracked sample, about 6%.1
Measured Their postings most often ask for machine learning (in 64 of 98), large language models (in 36) and Python (in 33).123
Written by an AI analyst (claude-opus-5-5) and checked by code against the numbers it cites.
What these postings say the work involves, counted from their lists of duties. A posting can list several.
Out of these 98 postings. “Asked for” adds required, one of several options, and listed; preferred is counted apart.
Programming, data, maths and statistics, and domain knowledge
| Skill | Asked for | Required | One of several | Listed | Preferred |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Python | 33 of 98 | 11 | 1 | 21 | 3 |
| Software engineering practice | 29 of 98 | 3 | 0 | 26 | 2 |
| Statistics and probability | 7 of 98 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 2 |
| Rust | 4 of 98 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| C++ | 3 of 98 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| Go | 2 of 98 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Algorithms and data structures | 1 of 98 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| C | 1 of 98 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Modelling, training, retrieval, agents, evaluation and other methods
| Skill | Asked for | Required | One of several | Listed | Preferred |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Machine learning | 64 of 98 | 14 | 3 | 47 | 14 |
| Large language models | 36 of 98 | 8 | 1 | 27 | 14 |
| PyTorch | 30 of 98 | 6 | 7 | 17 | 7 |
| Fine-tuning and post-training | 26 of 98 | 7 | 0 | 19 | 4 |
| Reinforcement learning | 19 of 98 | 5 | 0 | 14 | 15 |
| Deep learning | 19 of 98 | 11 | 0 | 8 | 8 |
| JAX | 15 of 98 | 4 | 6 | 5 | 3 |
| AI agents | 13 of 98 | 2 | 0 | 11 | 8 |
Deployment, infrastructure, reliability, security, monitoring and cost
| Skill | Asked for | Required | One of several | Listed | Preferred |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Distributed training | 18 of 98 | 3 | 0 | 15 | 8 |
| Distributed systems | 16 of 98 | 2 | 1 | 13 | 3 |
| MLOps and ML platforms | 15 of 98 | 5 | 0 | 10 | 8 |
| Performance and latency | 13 of 98 | 3 | 0 | 10 | 3 |
| Data pipelines (Spark, Airflow, Kafka) | 8 of 98 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 7 |
| Kubernetes and containers | 7 of 98 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 6 |
| System design and architecture | 6 of 98 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 3 |
| HPC and GPU clusters | 6 of 98 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 3 |
Publishing and leading research
| Skill | Asked for | Required | One of several | Listed | Preferred |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Research publications | 17 of 98 | 5 | 0 | 12 | 17 |
| Leading research | 10 of 98 | 1 | 0 | 9 | 6 |
| Open-source contributions | 2 of 98 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 12 |
Customers, communication, product thinking and leadership
| Skill | Asked for | Required | One of several | Listed | Preferred |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Communication | 25 of 98 | 4 | 0 | 21 | 0 |
| Leading and mentoring | 5 of 98 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Product thinking | 1 of 98 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Technical writing | 1 of 98 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
AI rules, policy and trust and safety
| Skill | Asked for | Required | One of several | Listed | Preferred |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Risk and compliance | 1 of 98 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Measured Research publications are listed as preferred, not required, in 17 of 98 postings.1
Measured Reinforcement learning, which trains a model by rewarding good results, is listed as preferred in 15 of 98 postings.1
Employers list these as preferred. That they ask does not show that these skills decide who is hired.
The systems these postings expect people to build, run or work within.
Only what the postings state. Most do not say everything, so each number has its own count of postings.
16 of 98 postings state a minimum; the median is 4 years.
34 of 98 postings state a degree; 23 of them accept equivalent experience instead.
3 more postings list a PhD as preferred.
11 postings are remote. Of these, 9 name where you must live or work from, 0 do not say, and 2 say anywhere.
What employers advertise, grouped only when the ranges are comparable. Not a prediction of what you would earn.
Measured In the postings we track, the median of advertised range midpoints for full-time base pay in the US is 347,500 USD per year, from 29 comparable disclosures.12
73 of 98 postings (74%) advertise a pay range. Employers that publish ranges may differ from those that do not, and some places require it by law, so these ranges do not describe all pay.
| Group of alike ranges | Postings | Median of range midpoints | Middle half of midpoints |
|---|---|---|---|
| USD, a year, base pay, United States, full-time9 employers | 29 | $347,500 | $300,000 to $440,000 |
| USD, a year, base pay, United States, employment type not stated1 employers | 14 | $600,000 | $478,125 to $675,000 |
This is advertised pay, not what anyone earns. We pool ranges only when currency, pay period, pay type, country and employment type are the same, and only with at least 10 of them. Nothing is converted. 30 other ranges could not be pooled (period not stated, several countries, or too few alike).
Advice built from what these 98 postings ask for. Tick what you can already do; we suggest up to three steps and one portfolio project, each with the requirement behind it and a way to show the result.
Analysis Tracking began on 6 October 2026, so these 98 postings are one reading so far and cannot show a trend yet.1
Analysis The postings we track come from 26 employers that publish their jobs through public feeds, so they are a sample, not the whole job market.1
Measured Many open listings are not new: 21 of 98 were first published more than a year ago, and 11 in the last 30 days.12
How everything is counted: our method. All roles: AI Career Compass.