The top of the range you're quoting is for a typical Staff Software Engineer at Google/Facebook/Microsoft. "Top ML experts" garner much, much higher comp packages.
Yeah these ranges are such a joke. Top new grads at Google are getting comp packages along the lines of 115 base, 450 RSUs / 4 years, 60k signing, 15% bonus these days. L5s regularly make 400k+ all in.
The obvious reality is that top people rarely talk about their comp packages, as there is no reason to rock the boat.
Are these numbers for real, and are these all Bay Area? I'm further North and pull no where near these numbers as an ML PhD with a lot of experience now in the tech industry. Have I goofed on all negotiations?
Probably real, yes only Bay Area, and no not the norm for ML.
First of all only a few companies can pay that much (Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Netflix, etc) and these are outliers. The average ML engineer in the Bay Area does not make 500k/yr total comp.
ML engineer is a programmer usually with a BS in CS, sometimes a MS. They are, in the end, only an engineer.
The AI scientists, those with work in computer vision, natural language, and audio, developing novel networks and training methods, make at least $500K/year. I've been a data scientist and the pay (and work content) was a joke. I switched to AI and damn, work makes you think and you get paid like a mid-range NBA star.
I went back for a PhD. I know a lot of people can't do this, but this is the reason why there are few AI specialists. You just can't become an expert by reading blogs and even research papers online. You need the full specialist environment, from discussions outside the bathroom to the drawings on the whiteboard.
And here I am dreaming of achieving it by doing MOOC courses :)...So, not possible at all this way?
Theoretically, one would feel, that by just reading blogs, watching videos along side taking MOOC courses, and spawning GPUs on the cloud, should do it.
300k+ for a new hire ML/CV/NLP PhD with some relevant experience.
150k+ for a new hire ML/CV/NLP MS with little to no experience
We were working with a very expert ML contractor that is doing 800k on his own from pop-up projects.