AI Implementation Jobs

Pay

$130k–$180k (base, US)

Distinct from

Unlike an ML engineer or data scientist, this role builds no models; it is a people-and-process role focused on getting existing AI tools adopted, closer to enablement/L&D than to engineering.

Source: Juniper Square AI Enablement Lead posting (Built In, remote US), $130K-$180K

Source refreshed: the original Axios posting (Built In NYC 8919109) was removed on Apr 15, 2026. The role is now widely posted and established; live US base bands cluster around $130K-$190K (Juniper Square $130K-$180K, Ridgeline $170K-$190K, IANS $144K-$180K), with senior/staff roles reaching higher (Grainger $164K-$295K). Pay anchored to the Juniper Square posting, which matches the enablement definition: AI-fluency training on Claude and Cowork, curriculum development, coaching, and adoption measurement.

Pay

$160k–$310k TC (total comp, US)

Distinct from

Differs from a classic MLOps/DevOps engineer in that the system under management is a probabilistic agent, not a deterministic service, so the job centers on evals, traces, and guardrails rather than uptime alone.

Source: Fieldguide 'Software Engineer, AgentOps' (Y Combinator, SF/Remote US), $160K-$310K

Source upgraded from a market-aggregate taxonomy to a real, explicitly-titled posting: Fieldguide 'Software Engineer, AgentOps' (Y Combinator), $160K-$310K. The posted range is base plus equity and the exact split is not stated; the broader market varies widely (Integrate 'Agentic Operations Engineer' $135K-$175K; Revelation Pharma 'DevOps/AgentOps Engineer' $115K-$125K).

Pay

$86k–$145k (base, US)

Distinct from

Unlike a general software or automation engineer, the emphasis is business-process diagnosis and low-code/agentic orchestration ('you do not need to be a deep coder'), not building bespoke application code.

Source: SailPoint AI Workflow Architect posting (Built In, remote US), $86K-$145K

Pay is the base range stated in the SailPoint posting.

Pay

$155k–$246k TC (total comp, US)

Distinct from

Less deeply embedded than a forward-deployed engineer: an AI solutions engineer owns integration and deployment of a vendor product across many accounts, closer to pre-sales and post-sales solutions work than to writing production code inside one customer's stack for months.

Source: Google Solutions Engineer compensation, Levels.fyi ($155K L3 to $246K L5)

Pay anchored to Levels.fyi total-comp for the Solutions Engineer ladder (Google) as the closest resolvable primary datapoint; AI-specific solutions-engineer postings (e.g. per KORE1) fall in a comparable $130K-$260K band.

Pay

$171k–$295k TC (total comp, US)

Distinct from

Unlike a solutions architect or sales engineer, the FDE actually writes and ships production code inside the customer's stack rather than advising or demoing; frontier labs (OpenAI, Anthropic) pay 2-3.5x Palantir's classic FDSE at senior levels, almost entirely in equity.

Source: Palantir Forward Deployed Software Engineer compensation, Levels.fyi ($171K-$295K, median ~$211K)

Pay is total compensation (base + stock + bonus) per Levels.fyi for Palantir's FDSE title, the canonical origin of the role.

Pay

$185k–$245k (base, US)

Distinct from

Positioned as the successor to the prompt engineer: instead of crafting single prompts, it engineers the retrieval, memory, and tool context around the model, which is a genuine software-architecture discipline.

Source: Context Engineer salary analysis (May 2026): US senior-IC base $185K-$245K, frontier-lab total comp above $500K

Pay updated from the original approximate Glassdoor-derived band ($130K-$220K) to a 2026 context-engineer-specific analysis: US senior-IC base $185K-$245K, with staff total comp exceeding $400K and frontier-lab (OpenAI, Anthropic) total comp above $500K. Anthropic and OpenAI now hire 'Context Engineer' explicitly, and the role sits in the highest-paid cluster of the new AI engineering disciplines. Sourced from a May 2026 salary analysis (secondary); a single authoritative posting series is still forming, so the figure is flagged for review.

Pay

$130k–$250k (base, US)

Distinct from

Unlike an AgentOps engineer (who runs agents in production observability) or a context engineer (who builds the retrieval and memory environment), the eval engineer builds the measurement systems, harnesses, and graders that judge whether models and agents are good enough to ship.

Source: Distyl AI 'AI Evaluation Engineer' posting (SF/NY), $130K-$250K

Posted range $130K-$250K (basis not explicitly stated; read as base for an SF/NY IC engineer). Total comp for the discipline runs $230K-$650K+ (JobsByCulture 2026 career guide), with frontier labs at the top (Anthropic Research Engineer, Model Evaluations $320K-$485K; Magic MTS Evals $200K-$550K; Microsoft AI Evaluations Engineering). A distinct, fast-forming discipline.

Pay

$114k–$220k (base, US)

Distinct from

Overlaps with the AI eval engineer (who builds eval infrastructure) and the AgentOps engineer (who observes agents in production); the agentic QA engineer focuses on pre-release testing strategy and quality gates that decide whether an agent is fit to ship. Distinctness from the eval engineer is the main review question.

Source: Fieldguide 'AI Engineer, Quality (Evals)' (SF/Remote US), $170K-$220K

Pay: Fieldguide AI Engineer, Quality (Evals) $170K-$220K (LangSmith, Langfuse); Realign Agentic QA Engineer about $114,617 (Dallas). Many current postings are India-based (EXL, Weekday AI). EXL's QA Engineer (C1) Agentic AI describes the role well: testing strategies for LLMs, multi-agent and RAG systems, automated eval pipelines, and CI/CD quality gates.

Pay

$82k–$186k (base, US)

Distinct from

Unlike a prompt engineer or context engineer (who engineer the model's retrieval and system context), the conversation designer owns the interaction layer: how the agent talks, what actions it takes, and how multi-turn flows feel to the user.

Source: UKG 'Conversation Systems Designer - AI Agent Behavior' (Seattle), $129,500-$186,100

Pay spans Checkr AI Conversation Designer $82K-$102K up to UKG Conversation Systems Designer $129,500-$186,100 (7+ years experience). Related 'AI Trainer' roles (RLHF and data labeling) are distinct and often lower-paid contract work.

Pay

$95k–$180k (base, US)

Distinct from

Unlike a security engineer (who secures infrastructure) or an AI eval engineer (who measures general quality for shipping), the AI red teamer adversarially attacks deployed models to surface safety, bias, and security vulnerabilities before real adversaries do.

Source: Handshake 'AI Red Teamer, Cybersecurity' (Seattle), $130K-$180K

Pay spans junior to senior: Handshake AI Red Teamer (Cybersecurity) $130K-$180K and (LLM Generalist) $95K-$145K; 10a Labs junior $70K-$90K. Frontier-lab AI safety and red-team roles pay far more. The role is borderline between AI operations and security research; included because it secures deployed AI systems.

Pay

$150k–$230k (base, US)

Distinct from

Unlike a generic product manager, the AI PM requires fluency in model capabilities, evaluation, and agentic system design, and owns AI-specific risks (hallucination, eval-driven release gates, model and vendor tradeoffs) rather than pure feature delivery. Distinctness from generic PM is the main review question for this emerging-roles catalogue.

Source: KORE1 AI Product Manager Salary Guide 2026 ($150K-$230K base; $250K-$550K total comp senior)

Pay per KORE1 2026 guide: $150K-$230K base, $250K-$550K total comp at senior. Corroborated by postings: Schwab Sr AI Product Manager $220K-$280K; Avant Generative AI Product Manager $165K-$185K; Scale AI Product Manager, Gen AI. More mainstream than the other entries; included as a distinct AI-era specialization, but whether it belongs in an emerging-roles catalogue is the review question.

Pay

$156k–$219k (base, US)

Distinct from

Unlike a general GRC or privacy officer, this role governs probabilistic AI systems specifically (model risk, evals, agent behavior) against AI-specific regulation, and increasingly reports risk directly to executive leadership.

Source: Axial Search, market analysis of 146 AI governance job postings (senior range $153.5K-$292.75K)

Pay tightened to the sourced middle-80% base band from Axial Search's analysis of 146 US AI-governance postings (page updated 2026-06-30): $156K-$219K, median $158,750. Director and VP roles reach higher, around $250K-$300K+ (GRC Careers 2026); the prior $292.75K high exceeded the analysis's sourced middle 80%.