Research Scientist Compensation Across Frontier Tech

Median total compensation by company, ranked. Sourced from disclosed salary bands on active job postings + verified community submissions across space, AI, robotics, and defense.

Company	Median TC	Median Base	Levels	Reports
Thinking Machines Lab AI	$413K	$350K	1	3
Theorem AI	$400K	$300K	1	1
Quinn AI	$400K	$300K	1	1
OpenAI AI	$370K	$295K	1	35
Aaru FRONTIER	$360K	$220K	1	1
Perplexity AI	$353K	$220K	1	1
Anthropic AI	$331K	$300K	1	2
Runway AI	$330K	$280K	0	9
Envoy AI	$300K	$200K	1	2
Udio AI	$300K	$250K	0	1
World Labs AI	$288K	$250K	1	1
Velvet AI	$275K	$250K	1	1
Applied Intuition FRONTIER	$275K	$126K	1	4
Hedra AI	$263K	$200K	1	2
Decagon AI	$261K	$232K	1	1
Abridge AI	$253K	$228K	2	2
Ambience Healthcare AI	$253K	$205K	1	1
Unsiloed AI AI	$250K	$200K	1	1
Autonomous Technologies Group AI	$250K	$200K	1	1
Labelbox AI	$250K	$200K	1	1
Scale AI AI	$243K	$216K	1	10
True Anomaly DEFENSE	$240K	$175K	1	3
Together AI AI	$240K	$200K	1	1
Plaid FRONTIER	$239K	$191K	1	1
Headway FRONTIER	$239K	$212K	1	1
Figma AI	$237K	$161K	1	2
Waymo FRONTIER	$232K	$204K	1	7
Variant VC	$225K	$150K	1	1
EliseAI AI	$225K	$175K	2	4
Helion Energy FRONTIER	$220K	$200K	1	8
Earli FRONTIER	$220K	$205K	1	1
arnata AI	$215K	$180K	1	1
Instacart FRONTIER	$207K	$201K	0	1
Tavus AI	$205K	$160K	1	1
Granica AI	$205K	$160K	1	1
Harvey AI AI	$200K	$180K	2	2
Deepgram AI	$200K	$150K	0	1
MindFort FRONTIER	$200K	$150K	1	1
Maywood AI	$200K	$150K	1	1
Flick AI	$200K	$150K	1	1
Inductive Bio FRONTIER	$200K	$180K	1	1
Terranox AI SPACE	$200K	$150K	1	1
Uplift AI FRONTIER	$200K	$150K	1	1
ASML FRONTIER	$195K	$156K	2	2
Firecrawl AI	$195K	$160K	1	1
Vantor FRONTIER	$195K	$146K	1	1
IonQ FRONTIER	$194K	$168K	3	7
Polymath FRONTIER	$191K	$127K	1	2
Periodic Labs AI	$190K	$160K	1	5
Interface AI	$185K	$120K	1	1
Vast SPACE	$185K	$160K	1	1
Illumio FRONTIER	$183K	$170K	1	1
Relativity Space SPACE	$183K	$154K	0	3
Plasmidsaurus FRONTIER	$180K	$170K	1	1
Profound AI	$180K	$110K	1	3
Amwell FRONTIER	$177K	$155K	0	1
Muon Space SPACE	$177K	$154K	2	2
Dream3D AI	$173K	$150K	1	1
Raven Space Systems SPACE	$170K	$150K	1	1
Corgea DEFENSE	$170K	$120K	1	1
Voyager Space DEFENSE	$168K	$145K	2	2
Asimov ROBOTICS	$168K	$158K	1	2
Tamarind Bio AI	$165K	$130K	1	2
ANORIA AI	$165K	$130K	1	1
Corgi Insurance AI	$163K	$125K	1	1
Trata AI	$162K	$120K	1	1
Blue Origin SPACE	$161K	$134K	1	1
Yondu ROBOTICS	$160K	$120K	1	1
Knowtex AI	$155K	$110K	1	1
Neuralink FRONTIER	$154K	$108K	1	1
Insitro FRONTIER	$153K	$146K	1	2
Exonic AI	$150K	$120K	1	1
Commonwealth Fusion Systems FRONTIER	$148K	$110K	1	1
Weave Robotics ROBOTICS	$145K	$125K	1	1
Varda Space SPACE	$140K	$120K	1	6
Spellbrush AI	$138K	$75K	1	1
MyOme FRONTIER	$135K	$120K	1	3
The Aerospace Corporation SPACE	$134K	$117K	1	9
Manifold Bio FRONTIER	$128K	$118K	1	6
Tomorrow.io FRONTIER	$125K	$115K	1	1
Multiply Labs ROBOTICS	$125K	$115K	1	1
JPL SPACE	$123K	$108K	1	3
Freenome FRONTIER	$120K	$104K	0	2
Dyno Therapeutics FRONTIER	$119K	$110K	1	2
Databricks AI	$119K	$112K	1	1
Cua AI	$104K	$96K	1	1
Leeroo AI	$99K	$78K	1	1
Epinoma FRONTIER	$95K	$80K	1	2
PointOne AI	$90K	$70K	1	1
SID AI	$90K	$60K	1	1
Ankr Health AI	$75K	$64K	1	1
ego AI	$75K	$50K	1	1
Dynamo AI AI	$60K	$42K	1	1

Company	Median TC	Jobs
Thinking Machines Lab	$350k–$475k	3
OpenAI	$295k–$445k	35
Applied Intuition	$126k–$423k	4
Runway	$280k–$380k	6
Scale AI	$216k–$270k	10
Waymo	$204k–$259k	3
Profound	$110k–$250k	3
Periodic Labs	$160k–$220k	4
Helion Energy	$150k–$192k	3
The Aerospace Corporation	$117k–$150k	9

Research Scientist Compensation Across Frontier Tech

Companies ranked by median Research Scientist total comp

Pay by seniority — across companies

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