AI Data Engineer.
Denver.
$167,000
median salary, 8% above the national average
$127,000 to $218,000. Updated for 2026.
The numbers.
Everything you need to negotiate with confidence.
AI Data Engineer pay in Denver ranges from $127,000 to $218,000 in 2026. The median is $167,000, 8% above the national average. Denver has emerged as a secondary tech hub with strong aerospace, telecom, and outdoor industry employers. Every dollar in that range is negotiable if you come prepared.
Salary range
Tap to place your salary
How Denver compares
Denver, CO
$167,000
Cost of living: 8% above average
National Average
$155,000
Denver is $12,000 above
What you should know
Before you negotiate a AI Data Engineer offer in Denver, understand the terrain. Denver has emerged as a secondary tech hub with strong aerospace, telecom, and outdoor industry employers. The city attracts remote workers and relocating companies seeking lower costs than the coasts. Salaries have climbed steadily as national employers open satellite offices and compete for Denver's growing talent pool. AI data engineers who build and maintain ML data pipelines earn premiums based on scale of data handled and complexity of feature engineering systems. Experience with streaming data platforms like Kafka alongside batch processing tools commands 10 to 20% higher pay. Cloud platform expertise in AWS, GCP, or Azure ML infrastructure is a baseline requirement.
Junior AI data engineers earn $118,000 to $140,000. Mid-level engineers with 3 to 5 years managing ML pipelines reach $155,000 to $200,000. Senior engineers and tech leads earn $205,000 to $270,000, while staff engineers and directors of ML infrastructure can command $290,000 to $380,000. In Denver, 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. Tech companies offer equity grants of 15 to 25% of base salary with four-year vesting. Annual bonuses range from 10 to 15%, and on-call compensation for maintaining production ML pipelines adds $5,000 to $15,000 annually at some firms. And on the tax side: colorado has a flat 4.4% state income tax. Denver has no additional city income tax, making the overall tax burden lighter than most coastal metros. When someone quotes you $167,000, ask what the total package looks like. The gap between base and total comp is where real money hides.
On negotiation: Position yourself as a remote talent anchor. Many companies pay near coastal rates for Denver based employees to save on office costs while retaining top performers. The range for AI Data Engineers in Denver runs from $127,000 to $218,000. 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 Denver
Negotiating in Denver
Position yourself as a remote talent anchor. Many companies pay near coastal rates for Denver based employees to save on office costs while retaining top performers.