AI Analytics Engineer.
Indianapolis.
$129,000
median salary, 9% below the national average
$98,000 to $168,000. Updated for 2026.
The numbers.
Everything you need to negotiate with confidence.
The median AI Analytics Engineer salary in Indianapolis is $129,000, 9% below the national average. Entry level starts near $98,000. Experienced professionals push past $168,000. Indianapolis has a diversified economy led by healthcare, life sciences, and motorsports engineering. That spread is your negotiation window.
Salary range
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How Indianapolis compares
Indianapolis, IN
$129,000
Cost of living: 9% below average
National Average
$142,000
Indianapolis is $13,000 below
What you should know
Before you negotiate a AI Analytics Engineer offer in Indianapolis, understand the terrain. Indianapolis has a diversified economy led by healthcare, life sciences, and motorsports engineering. Eli Lilly's headquarters drives a major pharmaceutical and biotech cluster. The city's extremely affordable cost of living means that even moderate salaries deliver strong purchasing power, making it an underrated destination for professionals seeking financial stability. AI analytics engineers who build data models and dashboards for ML performance monitoring earn salaries driven by business impact and technical depth. Experience with experiment tracking, model monitoring, and A/B testing frameworks adds 10 to 15% to compensation. Companies in fintech and healthcare pay above-market rates for this role.
Junior AI analytics engineers start at $108,000 to $125,000. Mid-level engineers with 3 to 5 years reach $142,000 to $185,000. Senior analytics engineers earn $190,000 to $240,000, while analytics engineering managers and directors of ML analytics can command $250,000 to $320,000. In Indianapolis, cost of living sits near the national average, so the numbers you see are roughly what you keep.
Base salary is not the full picture. Equity grants typically represent 10 to 20% of base salary at growth-stage companies. Annual bonuses range from 8 to 15%. Some firms offer profit-sharing arrangements, and remote work flexibility is common, though Bay Area-based roles pay 20 to 30% more. And on the tax side: indiana has a flat 3.05% state income tax, one of the lowest in the country. Marion County adds about 2.02% in local taxes. The combined rate remains well below most major metros. When someone quotes you $129,000, ask what the total package looks like. The gap between base and total comp is where real money hides.
On negotiation: Benchmark against pharmaceutical industry pay scales. Eli Lilly and the biotech cluster set high compensation floors that ripple across all professional roles in Indianapolis. The range for AI Analytics Engineers in Indianapolis runs from $98,000 to $168,000. That is not a narrow window. Where you land inside it depends almost entirely on whether you negotiate and how well you prepare.
Top industries in Indianapolis
Negotiating in Indianapolis
Benchmark against pharmaceutical industry pay scales. Eli Lilly and the biotech cluster set high compensation floors that ripple across all professional roles in Indianapolis.