In 2021, the average annual salary for a ‘machine learning engineer’ in India is INR 8 lakh ($10,757), as per Glassdoor. But according to PayScale, the median salary of an ML engineer stands at INR 6.8 lakh per year($9,382).
Artificial intelligence and machine learning jobs are projected to grow 40% over the next six years. LinkedIn has 1,982 job listings for candidates with TensorFlow expertise, 1,176 open positions for candidates with PyTorch knowledge.
At the time of writing, LinkedIn had 15,542 jobs in India and 171,549 open positions worldwide with machine learning as a required skill.
(Source: Payscale)
Experience matters
Since machine learning is an emerging field, experts believe often companies look at candidates’ educational background, hands-on experience on a particular project, how well they handle the problems, and their ability to learn, etc to decide the salary package.
With respect to freshers, most organisations look for candidates with a relevant degree with an experience of 0-1 year, preferably in computer science, physics, maths etc with experience working on data science and machine learning projects. The average entry-level machine learning engineer salary ranges from INR 1.74-1.86 lakh per year, as per Glassdoor.
Candidates with 1-4 years of experience in a machine learning engineering or related role (software engineer, data scientist, data analyst, business analyst, etc.) can expect a salary range of INR 7.5 to INR 16 (according to Glassdoor) lakh per year, especially if they have Master’s degree or advanced degrees in analytics or data science.
Seasoned professionals with 4-9 years of experience in machine learning earn good salaries. The candidate must have in-depth knowledge about the machine learning lifecycle, tools and latest developments to deploy and manage machine learning models seamlessly. They should be able to lead a team of freshers and junior engineers to achieve machine learning goals of the organisation.
As per Upgrad, the average salary of a mid-level machine learning engineer is over INR 1 Cr in India. The graph below shows the job openings for mid and senior-level machine learning engineers have increased by 102 percent and 184 percent, respectively.
Read ‘how to become a machine learning engineer?’ here.
Essential skills
The skills required to land a machine learning engineer job varies from one domain to another. However, the essential skills for machine learning engineers include data science, computer vision, natural language processing (NLP), Python, deep learning, and machine learning.
The below image shows how the tech skills impact the average salaries of machine learning engineers.
Location impact
In the US, a top-level machine learning engineer gets anywhere between $175,000 to $245,000 per year, 20% more than the Indian median. Within the US, the machine learning engineer’s salary varies from one location to another.
For instance, the machine learning engineer in New York gets paid an average of $122,000 more than cities like in Charleston, Los Angeles, etc. That is because the cost of living is high in New York. Therefore, it is important to evaluate the cost of living and base salary before accepting a job offer. Check out the average machine learning engineer salary globally below.
(Source: Dezyre)
In India, the average machine learning engineer salary per annum in Bengaluru is about INR 8,44,175, followed by Delhi (INR 7,50,000), Chennai (INR 6,92,087), Kolkata (INR 6,50,000) and Mumbai (INR 6,10,419). As per PayScale, the employees with title machine learning engineer in Bengaluru earn 25 percent more than the national average.
(Source: My Great Learning)
Average Machine Learning Engineer Salary (Base Pay Average)
- Microsoft (INR 15-24 lakh per annum)
- Google (INR 12.2 lakh per annum)
- Infosys (INR 6.28 lakh per annum)
- Capgemini (INR 8.4-9 lakh per annum)
(Source: Glassdoor)
As machine learning continues to make inroads into various industries, the demand for machine learning engineers is on the rise. In the last four years, the artificial intelligence specialist role has witnessed a 74 percent annual growth rate. In India, the average salary offered for machine learning engineers is pretty low compared to the rest of the world.
