An AI Developer builds applications on top of existing models rather than training new ones: agent loops, retrieval pipelines, tool use, evaluation harnesses and the product surfaces people actually touch. The role appeared as soon as frontier models became an API, and it is now how most companies add AI without a research team.
AI Developer Jobs in the United States
What is a AI Developer?
An AI Developer builds applications on top of existing models rather than training new ones: agent loops, retrieval pipelines, tool use, evaluation harnesses and the product surfaces people actually touch. The role appeared as soon as frontier models became an API, and it is now how most companies add AI without a research team.
Pay, measured on ENTRA: across the AI Developer postings in this market that publish a salary, the median advertised band is $266K–$385K a year, with the top decile reaching $485K. Read it as a snapshot rather than a market average: one employer accounts for most of the postings that publish a band here. Measured 25 September 2026; the figure is recomputed from live postings, not taken from a survey.
What the job actually involves
- Design and ship agentic workflows, retrieval pipelines and tool integrations.
- Write evaluations that tell you whether a prompt or model change actually helped.
- Control latency, cost and failure modes of model calls in production.
- Build the product surface — chat, copilot, automation — around the model.
Skills employers ask for
Remote AI Developer Jobs
Work on AI from anywhere.
Remote AI Developer roles at verified companies.
Work on AI from anywhere.
Remote AI Developer roles at verified companies.
Companies hiring AI Developers
Employers with the most open AI Developer roles here right now. Counts are live and move as companies publish and close postings.
Top-Paying AI Developer Jobs
Salary shown up front.
Every ENTRA posting carries a published band — no "competitive".
Salary shown up front.
Every ENTRA posting carries a published band — no "competitive".
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an AI Developer?+
An engineer who builds products on top of existing AI models — agents, retrieval, tool use and evaluation — rather than training models from scratch.
AI Developer vs Machine Learning Engineer?+
An AI developer composes and evaluates existing models inside an application; an ML engineer builds and operates the training and serving systems behind models.
What should an AI developer portfolio show?+
Shipped applications with real users, an evaluation setup that proves quality, and honest handling of cost, latency and failure modes.
Hiring a AI Developer?
Hiring a AI Developer?
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