Amazon Machine Learning Engineer Salaries

The demand for machine learning engineers has significantly increased in recent times, with top tech companies aggressively hiring engineers with ML and AI skills. Given the increasing demand for these skills, the salaries associated with ML roles are quite rewarding. 

Being one of the biggest tech companies in the world, Amazon offers lucrative compensation packages to ML engineers. In this article, we’ll look at salaries that ML engineers make at Amazon and also compare those with the ML engineer salaries at some other biggest tech companies. 

Here’s what we’ll cover in this article:

• The Role of ML Engineers at Amazon
• Skills and Qualifications Required to Be an Amazon ML Engineer
• Amazon Machine Learning Engineer Salaries 
• Amazon Machine Learning Engineer Salary Components
• Additional Benefits Offered to Amazon ML Engineers
• ML Salaries: Amazon vs. Other FAANG Companies
• How to Ace Your ML Interview at Amazon

The Role of ML Engineers at Amazon

Machine learning engineers research, build, and design scalable ML and AI systems and develop ML algorithms to automate predictive data models. They work cross-functionally with data engineers and data scientists to understand data metrics and design algorithms that can automate data-driven decision-making. Here’s what ML engineers at Amazon typically do:

• Understand data dynamics and build ML algorithms to automate predictive models
• Build scalable ML systems and deep learning models
• Understand consumer behavior and design algorithms to optimize consumer engagement
• Constantly track the performance of predictive models and enhance the performance of these models
• Develop algorithms to automate software processes and applications
• Design the architecture of predictive data models, track metrics, and leverage data, and perform data pipeline interaction
• Perform data mining, and develop tools to monitor decision models

Skills and Qualifications Required to be a Machine Learning Engineer at Amazon

Listed below are some of the basic and preferred qualifications and skills required to be a machine learning engineer at Amazon.

Basic Qualifications

• A bachelor’s degree in computer science, mathematics, statistics, data analytics, IT, or a related field
• 5+ years of experience in the field of data engineering or machine learning
• Proven experience in working with deep learning and predictive data models

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in working with UNIX/LINUX to operate on huge data sets
• Experience working with data extraction systems and data processing technologies such as Spark, Mongo, Kafka, etc. 
• Proven experience in working with Amazon Web Services technologies such as EC2, S3, Redshift, and EMR
• Proven ability to work cross-functionally with data engineering and software engineering teams to build tools and applications

Essential Technical Skills 

• Software development
• Big data analytics
• C++ programming language
• Deep learning
• Data modeling
• Additional machine learning skills
• Domain knowledge

Essential Soft Skills

• Problem-solving skills
• Communication skills
• Domain knowledge
• Time management
• Teamwork
• Thirst for learning

Amazon Machine Learning Engineer Salaries 

ML engineers at Amazon make anywhere between $97,000 and $300,000 a year, depending on the level of seniority. Senior individual contributors (ICs) and directors of engineering can draw much higher salaries and are awarded a higher quantum of company stock. 

The table below indicates the average salary drawn by Amazon machine learning engineers:

We see that a machine learning engineer can earn an average total of about $139,960. 

Note: Machine learning scientist Amazon salary will be different because their role is different from ML engineers. They research new approaches and completely new algorithms. 

Amazon Machine Learning Engineer Salary Components

The following are the salary components in a machine learning engineer’s salary at Amazon:

• The Base component: This amount indicates the fixed component of your salary.
• Cash Bonus: This is a variable component that is tied to your annual performance and is paid out annually if your performance is up to standard. 
• Stock options: Stock options are usually given to senior ML positions and come with a vesting period of 4-5 years. 

Since artificial intelligence and machine learning jobs are only growing, the compensation packages will get more attractive.

Additional Benefits Offered to Amazon ML Engineers

Here are some additional benefits offered to Amazon’s ML engineers:

• Insurance benefits - health, dental, accidental, and vision
• Health savings account
• Transportation to the Amazon campus
• Maternity and paternity leave
• Paid leaves and sick leaves to employees
• Mental health and counseling services

Machine Learning Engineer Salaries: Amazon vs. Other FAANG Companies

Below is a comparison of machine learning engineer salaries at Amazon and other FAANG companies (average annual amount). 

As you can see, Amazon ML salaries are slightly on the lower side but still pretty competitive among other FAANG companies. Apple is known to pay the highest salaries to its machine learning engineers, while Facebook offers the highest average stock options. 

How to Ace Your ML Engineer Interview at Amazon

If you’re a software engineer, software developer, engineering manager, or tech lead preparing for tech interviews, check out our interview questions page and salary negotiation ebook to get interview-ready! Also, read Amazon Interview Questions and Amazon Interview Process Guide for specific insights and guidance on Amazon tech interviews.

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