This Job Pays a 'Startling' Salary

In Silicon Valley, This Job Pays a 'Startling' Salary

Become an AI specialist, kids

By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff

A stock photo that maybe kinda makes you think of AI?   (Getty Images)

(NEWSER) – US News & World Report is out with a list of the 10 best jobs for millennials (No. 1 is web developer, No. 2 is dental hygienist), and says its list took into consideration the group's priorities. And, per a survey it did of 1,000 millennials, salary is their chief consideration. So they may want to read on: The New York Times this week took a look at a burgeoning field with "salaries that are startling even in an industry that has never been shy about lavishing a fortune on its top talent": artificial intelligence. The takeaway is that the annual package of salary and stock for a "typical" AI engineer—working on, says self-driving cars or smart home devices—tends to be in the $300,000 to $500,000 range.

As for who is getting those salaries, the Times reports there's a global pool of only about 10,000 people with the right set of skills, and so newly minted PhDs as well as "people with less education and just a few years of experience" are raking in the big bucks. And, as a big-name athlete might do, they renew contracts every few years, for a multi-year take that has in some cases entered the eight-figure range. The famous-athlete comparison goes pretty deep: A hiring manager at Microsoft said, "That would make things easier. A lot easier," when the Times posed the idea of an NFL-like salary cap being imposed on skyrocketing AI salaries. One wrinkle: the salaries are so alluring that many of the professors who are able to teach AI are being pulled out of academia.