Leveraging Rare Skillsets: OpenAI Engineers Reap $800K a Year!
The reinstatement of Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman by OpenAI came as a response to the threat of mass resignations from numerous employees. This incident underscores the significant influence that highly valued workers in the tech industry currently possess.
AI engineers earn 8-12.5% more than non-AI engineers, according to an analysis published in May by compensation data platform Levels.fyi.
The most common salary range for engineering positions listed on OpenAI’s website is $200,000 to $370,000, although a handful of specialized roles are advertised at between $300,000 and $450,000, said Roger Lee, founder of compensation firm Comprehensive.io. The salary ranges do not include bonuses or stock awards, which can push a $300,000 annual salary closer to $800,000 in total compensation, according to Levels.fyi.
In an industry where talent is the scarcest resource, the refugee change threatened by OpenAI would have been catastrophic. “With new technologies like artificial intelligence, you only have a very small group of experienced people. They’re a product, they’re a company,” said Julia Pollak, ZipRecruiter’s chief economist.
This put OpenAI employees in an unusually powerful position to directly pressure the company’s board of directors.
“The supply constraint is very real and binding, especially in the short to medium term,” he said. “These people cannot be easily trained, and they cannot be easily recruited from elsewhere. Keeping the ones you have is the most important strategy.”
When recruiting from universities, there is a big difference between understanding AI models at a theoretical level and the skills and experience to apply them. OpenAI’s highly specialized software systems also make its current developers even more valuable.
“Learning the code and technology stack of a real company takes a long time. One AI engineer inside the company is worth three AI engineers from outside the company given these dynamics,” Pollak said.
OpenAI’s staff already had job offers waiting. Before bringing Altman back, Microsoft Corp. said they would be welcome to join its new artificial intelligence research lab. Microsoft owns about 49% of OpenAI.
