We track 30 Series C companies in the United States hiring ml and ai engineers, carrying 56 open postings between them. The midpoint of the advertised base range runs $177K at the 25th percentile, $205K at the median and $250K at the 75th — measured across companies (n = 30), not across postings, and taken only from ranges the companies publish through their own applicant tracking systems.
| Percentile | Advertised range midpoint | What it buys |
|---|---|---|
| 25th | $177K | strong candidate, narrower scope or smaller market |
| 50th | $205K | the number to budget against |
| 75th | $250K | competitive against the best-funded companies in the market |
Base only. Equity at Series C is usually a real number rather than a lottery ticket — there is a recent valuation and a growing secondary market — so candidates increasingly compare it directly against a public-company grant. Expect that comparison to come up at offer stage.
Three choices, and most published salary guides state none of them.
One employer, one vote. We take each company's own median, then the median of those. Counting raw postings instead lets one company with dozens of open roles outweigh dozens of companies with one each — on this dataset that moved a single figure by more than $100,000.
The middle of the range, not the top. A posting advertising $177K–$250K is counted at its midpoint. Reporting the top of every band instead inflates the headline by around 11%, which is roughly the gap between a competitive offer and one that gets declined.
Only ranges the company published itself. These come from employers' own applicant tracking systems, not from salary figures scraped out of job-description prose. The scraped kind runs about 12% lower on the same roles and we exclude it rather than average the two together.
30 companies, 56 postings — 1.9 per company. Series B companies run 1.5, publicly traded companies run 2.7. At this density a company is filling named gaps rather than standing up a team, so the brief is usually specific and the bar for scope-fit is higher.
6.1% of the Series C companies we track are in an active hiring surge, against 3.4% at Series B companies and 9.1% at publicly traded companies. That gradient is the single best predictor of whether a search will move quickly once it opens.
Across the AI assistants we track, ml and ai engineers queries name a recruiting partner in about 21% of answers — the shape buyers increasingly search in.
The same role prices differently by stage — $205K to $229K at the median, a spread of 12%:
| Stage | Median base | Open postings | Companies hiring |
|---|---|---|---|
| Series B | $213K | 63 | 43 |
| Series C (this page) | $205K | 56 | 30 |
| Public | $229K | 112 | 41 |
Budget against your own stage, not the headline number — a band copied from a later-stage competitor loses candidates at the offer, and one copied from an earlier stage loses them at the first call.
We recruit across the engineering organisation at Mercor, a Series C company — the function, not a single requisition. Depth at one company beats breadth across fifty, and that is the thing worth testing when you evaluate a recruiting firm or agency: ask which companies they work the whole org for, not how many logos they can show you.
Series C is where hiring turns from opportunistic to planned. There is a headcount plan, a finance partner attached to it, and usually an in-house recruiter or two — which changes what an outside firm is for. At Series B a firm is often the whole function; at Series C it is brought in for the roles the in-house team cannot fill alone, which are almost always the senior and the specialised ones. That makes the brief sharper and the bar for a submission higher.
How many Series C companies are hiring ml and ai engineers?
30 in the United States, with 56 open postings between them.
What should we budget for a ML Engineer at Series C?
$205K base at the median, with the 25th-to-75th range running $177K to $250K (n = 30 companies).
How long will the search take?
Typically 4 to 8 weeks once a search is properly briefed. The brief is the variable, not the sourcing: a role three stakeholders describe differently will outrun any estimate.
Is a recruiting agency worth it for this role at Series C companies?
It depends on whether the role is one your in-house team can fill. Series C teams generally handle mid-level hiring well and struggle with senior and specialised searches — which is exactly where an outside firm earns its fee.
What is the difference between a recruiting firm and a recruiting agency here?
Nothing meaningful — the terms are used interchangeably in this market. What differs is whether the firm specialises in the stage and the function, or covers everything.
Book a 15-minute call → — bring the role, the band and the timeline, and you will leave with a view on whether it is fillable at that number.
Prefer to write it down first? Tell us about the role → and we will come back to you.
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