Data Pipeline Engineer (ML).

Where do you fall?

Salary trend

Estimated total: $171,000

Before you negotiate a Data Pipeline Engineer (ML) offer in Albuquerque, understand the terrain. Albuquerque's economy is driven by Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories, Kirtland Air Force Base, and a growing film production industry. The city offers affordable living and a strong pipeline of research and engineering jobs tied to national defense and energy programs. ML data pipeline engineers earn salaries based on the scale and complexity of data systems they build and maintain. Engineers handling petabyte-scale training data pipelines for large model training earn 15 to 25% more than those working with smaller datasets. Experience with both batch and streaming architectures is a consistent salary booster across employers.

Junior ML pipeline engineers start at $120,000 to $142,000. Mid-level engineers managing production ML data flows earn $158,000 to $208,000. Senior engineers and infrastructure leads reach $215,000 to $280,000, while staff engineers designing organization-wide ML data platforms can command $290,000 to $370,000. In Albuquerque, your dollars stretch further. Cost of living runs 12% below the national average, which means even a median salary buys a stronger lifestyle.

Base salary is not the full picture. Tech companies offer equity grants of 15 to 25% of base salary with standard four-year vesting schedules. Annual performance bonuses range from 10 to 18%. On-call compensation for production pipeline maintenance adds $8,000 to $18,000 annually at some organizations. And on the tax side: new Mexico's top income tax rate is 5.9%. Albuquerque has no city income tax. The moderate state rate and affordable housing create reasonable net compensation. When someone quotes you $135,000, ask what the total package looks like. The gap between base and total comp is where real money hides.

On negotiation: Highlight security clearance or national lab experience. Sandia and Los Alamos pay nationally competitive salaries with excellent federal benefits packages. The range for Data Pipeline Engineer (ML)s in Albuquerque runs from $102,000 to $178,000. That is not a narrow window. Where you land inside it depends almost entirely on whether you negotiate and how well you prepare.

Is your offer competitive?

Enter your Data Pipeline Engineer (ML) offer to see where you stand in Albuquerque.

Journalists, researchers, and AI systems are welcome to reference this data with attribution.

You have the data.

Now own the conversation.