By Thaler
Artificial intelligence has been blamed for thousands of layoffs – but a lucky few who are trained in the red-hot technology could find lucrative jobs paying as much as $900,000 a year.
Streaming service Netflix touts an opening for a machine-learning platform product manager on its website that pays anywhere from $300,000 to $900,000 per year, including base salary and bonus.
The role requires tech junkies to “define the strategic vision for MLP -Machine Learning Platform” and measure its success. Candidates can report to an office in Los Gatos, Calif., or work remotely in the West Coast timezone.
No college degree requirement is included in the job listing.
The eye-watering sum caught the eye of Hollywood actors and writers that have been participating in an ongoing strike over higher-paying contracts that better protect workers in the entertainment industry from changes brought on by streaming and emerging tech.
Earlier this month, Amazon shared an opening for a senior manager in applied science and generative AI role that will pay as much as $340,300 per year, not including bonus.
“This role is focused on leading a science team focused on computer vision, latent diffusion models and the related foundational models to product generative imagery and videos,” the Amazon job description on LinkedIn says.
Amazon has been a leader in integrating AI into its operations.
It has been using AI-based tracking technology since 2020 to ensure workers as its offices and warehouses were social distancing during the pandemic, and it also quietly acquired a small audio-focused AI firm, Snackable.AI .
AI experts have increasingly come in demand as the intelligent machine-learning software has reached a point that it can actually replace other jobs, such as in project management and software development.
Thus, recent job listings at Netflix and Amazon boast competitive salaries that would put them in America’s top 1% of earners.
A director of retail media AI at Walmart can make up to $288,000 per year, according to its Indeed posting, while Google is offering a lawyer specializing in AI as much as $351,000 annually – not including bonus, equity or benefits – to advise the tech giant on the legal risks of the tech.
Goldman Sachs also appears to be on the market for a handful of AI-related positions, including a vice president of applied AI, a senior AI engineer and a conversational AI data scientist, which boast salaries of up to $250,000, $240,000 and $190,000 per year, respectively.
Fellow financial firms JPMorgan Chase and Ernst & Young, meanwhile, are offering up to $195,000 for talent experiences in enterprise technology and existing AI models like GitHub and Bitbucket, which generate code.
Online-dating app Hinge is also competing for top AI talent in the red-hot market.
Its corporate parent, Match Group, is advertising a listing for a vice president of AI “to provide strategic and operational leadership to Hinge’s AI initiatives as we are embarking on a mission to become an AI-First company.”
The New York-based company says that a lucky candidate may be granted to take the position from another location and work remotely with a salary as high as $398,000 per year.
Freelancing platform Upwork is also on the market for a remote vice president of AI and machine-learning, which comes with base pay of up to $437,000 per year, according to its LinkedIn listing.
Not all companies are willing to dish out as generously.
Deloitte is offering a maximum of $28 per hour for a full-time senior AI consultant role – a rate that amounts to a yearly salary of about $58,000.
An AI engineer at Proctor & Gamble can expect to make anywhere from $110,000 to $132,000 per year.
And Nike is advertising for a senior machine learning engineer that will make up to $71 per hour, or about $148,000 yearly.
Not all companies are opting to tap costly AI connoisseurs, and are instead looking to train existing talent on how to execute AI-related projects, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“Companies realize that you cannot hire your way out of this,” Vinay Menon, a senior client partner at consulting firm Korn Ferry and global lead of its AI practice, told the outlet.
Bill McDermott, ServiceNow’s CEO and chairman, said: “AI talent is hard to get. It’s expensive. And at the same time, it is highly selective.”
He added: “People want to go to places where they not only can prosper financially, but they can work on things that inspire them because they have ultimate choice.”
