AI Data Engineer.
Minneapolis.
$163,000
median salary, 5% above the national average
$124,000 to $212,000. Updated for 2026.
The numbers.
Everything you need to negotiate with confidence.
Here is what AI Data Engineers actually make in Minneapolis: $124,000 at the 25th percentile, $163,000 at the median, and $212,000 at the 75th. That is 5% above the national average. Minneapolis is a Fortune 500 powerhouse with Target, UnitedHealth Group, Best Buy, and 3M headquartered in the metro. The number on your offer letter will depend on what you bring and how you ask.
Salary range
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How Minneapolis compares
Minneapolis, MN
$163,000
Cost of living: 5% above average
National Average
$155,000
Minneapolis is $8,000 above
What you should know
If you are interviewing for AI Data Engineer roles in Minneapolis, here is what you are walking into. Minneapolis is a Fortune 500 powerhouse with Target, UnitedHealth Group, Best Buy, and 3M headquartered in the metro. The city's strong corporate base creates consistent demand across finance, healthcare, retail tech, and supply chain roles. Quality of life is high, and employers offer competitive salaries to offset the cold winters. 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 Minneapolis, 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: minnesota's top income tax rate is 9.85%, one of the highest state rates. There is no city income tax in Minneapolis, but the state burden significantly reduces take home pay. When someone quotes you $163,000, ask what the total package looks like. The gap between base and total comp is where real money hides.
On negotiation: Emphasize retention risk when negotiating. Minneapolis employers know that remote opportunities from warmer, lower tax states are a constant competitive threat. The range for AI Data Engineers in Minneapolis runs from $124,000 to $212,000. 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 Minneapolis
Negotiating in Minneapolis
Emphasize retention risk when negotiating. Minneapolis employers know that remote opportunities from warmer, lower tax states are a constant competitive threat.