Research Engineer jobs (2026)

What Research Engineer jobs pay

The 132 open Research Engineer roles in our index cluster around a median total compensation of $245k, though the band is wide: junior postings start well below that and staff-level roles run far above it. Compensation tracks seniority and how close the role sits to a company's core AI product.

For the full breakdown — percentiles, pay by seniority, and how base splits from equity — see the Research Engineer salary guide. This page is the live hiring side of the same data: who is hiring right now, and what they are asking for.

Skills Research Engineer roles ask for

We parse the skills named in every live posting and rank them by how often they appear. For Research Engineer roles, the most-requested skills right now:

Treat the top two or three as table stakes — they show up in the large majority of postings, so a resume that does not surface them clearly will struggle past automated screening. The long-tail skills are where you differentiate.

Where Research Engineer roles are

Remote roles have widened the map, but the AI-native hiring centre of gravity is still a handful of hubs. How the current openings break down:

If you are open to remote, you are competing in a larger pool but against a much wider set of openings. Filtering by location narrows the list but also narrows the competition.

What these roles look for

Across Research Engineer postings, the recurring requirements cluster into a few themes:

• Shipped, not studied — evidence you have taken PyTorch and RL work into production.
• Ownership — the more senior the posting, the more it expects you to own systems end to end.
• Communication — AI-native teams move fast and write a lot; clear written reasoning is consistently named.
• Judgment under ambiguity — comfort making calls when the model behaviour, not the spec, is the hard part.

How to stand out for Research Engineer roles

The bar is less about credentials than demonstrated capability. A targeted application — a resume that mirrors the posting's language and a portfolio that proves you have shipped the named skills — clears screening far more reliably than a generic one.

That is the gap Landed is built to close: it scores your readiness against the live posting, tells you exactly which skills and signals you are missing, and drills the interview until you walk in ready.