Apple Machine Learning Engineer Salary

Here we’ll share our most up-to-date salary data for ICT3-ICT5 machine learning engineer roles at Apple as of April 2023. Rora has coached hundreds of MLEs and research scientists over the past 5 years across many of the best companies in the industry (Google Brain, Apple, DeepMind, OpenAI, FAIR, MSR, Tesla) and reviewed 1000s of verified offers. We’ve also included some helpful context below on how Apple compares to the highest AI salaries in the industry, taking into account the current tech hiring pullback.

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ICT3 Apple MLE Salary

2023 Top of Band Numbers

Base Salary

$185K

‍

Equity (4-years)

$450K

Yr 1 & 2 Signing Bonus

$125K

‍

Performance Bonus

10%

In 2022 we negotiated multiple above-band offers with equity approaching ICT4 levels and multi-year signing bonuses over $200K. However, the big tech hiring pullback has changed comp packages, and we are seeing fewer above-band offers for MLE vs RS roles.

ICT4 Apple MLE Salary

2023 Top of Band Numbers

Base Salary

$215K

‍

Equity (4-years)

$700K

‍

Yr 1 & 2 Signing Bonus

$175K

‍

Performance Bonus

10%

‍

Recently Apple has been extending many low initial offers at the ICT4 level. It is not unusual to see substantially smaller signing bonuses or equity value, and recruiters taking a firm stance throughout negotiations. That said, we continue to see increases in many of our ICT4 offer negotiations.

ICT5 Apple MLE Salary

2023 Top of Band Numbers

Base Salary

$275K

‍

Equity (4-years)

$1.4M

‍

Yr 1 & 2 Signing Bonus

$225K

‍

Performance Bonus

15%

For ICT5 candidates on the cusp of ICT6 (a level Apple is reticent to offer), we've seen a few significantly above-band offers, with one candidate securing $3M in equity. But, that is not representative of the ICT5 band and can only be achieved in rare circumstances.

ML/AI Compensation Landscape

To call the current AI hiring market unique would be a bit of an understatement. On one hand, big tech companies are doing frequent layoffs and freezing hiring for many groups. But simultaneously, hundreds of tech companies have declared AI their top priority for the next few years. As a result, we’ve seen huge variance in AI offers, with careful negotiation making the difference since companies and recruiters are struggling to balance budgets while hitting AI growth goals.

Recently we shared a detailed report on salary negotiation for AI Researchers in 2023, which included this table outlining the highest offers from our recent PHD negotiations. While not directly comparable to MLE offers, it is still a good guide for which companies are paying the most and how much can still be negotiated despite a slower hiring market.

Machine Learning Engineer Negotiations

As you can see from the table above, salary negotiation can significantly impact total compensation at most companies. Many engineers we talk to tell us it is hard to get a sense for current negotiation strategies as the market is so different now compared to just 1 year ago. To help with that, we’ve compiled a number of resources below that we’d recommend you review before starting any negotiation.

First, the salary negotiation section of this article (2023 AI salary Negotiation Report) is certainly worth a read as MLE/RS are both in high demand and have similar salary negotiation tactics.

Additionally, it’s often helpful to just hear first-hand accounts of other people going through the negotiation process. As you will see, recruiters are certainly putting more consistent pressure on candidates, but this can be managed throughout the negotiation.

Hopefully these resources will help, but each negotiation is unique, and the best next step would be to jump on a free 1-1 call with a negotiation lead from Rora.

1:1 Salary Negotiation Support

We've negotiated more than $30M in Apple offers. Our largest Apple increase was $1.5M over four years!

Step 1 is defining the strategy, which often starts by helping you create leverage for your negotiation (e.g. setting up conversations with FAANG recruiters).