AI Data Quality Engineer.
Raleigh.
$139,000
median salary, 1% below the national average
$104,000 to $183,000. Updated for 2026.
The numbers.
Everything you need to negotiate with confidence.
If you are evaluating a AI Data Quality Engineer offer in Raleigh, NC, here is the reality: $104,000 to $183,000, with $139,000 as the midpoint. 1% below the national average. AI data quality engineers ensure training and serving data meets standards for ML model reliability. Do not accept the first number.
Salary range
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How Raleigh compares
Raleigh, NC
$139,000
Cost of living: 1% below average
National Average
$140,000
Raleigh is $1,000 below
What you should know
The AI Data Quality Engineer landscape in Raleigh is not what most salary sites will tell you. Raleigh sits at the heart of the Research Triangle, one of America's premier tech and life sciences corridors. Cisco, Red Hat, Epic Games, and numerous biotech firms drive strong demand for engineering, research, and product roles. The combination of top tier universities and moderate living costs creates an exceptionally favorable salary to expense ratio. AI data quality engineers ensure training and serving data meets standards for ML model reliability. Salary is driven by experience with data validation frameworks, drift detection systems, and automated quality monitoring at scale. Engineers working in regulated industries like healthcare and finance earn 12 to 20% premiums due to compliance requirements.
Junior AI data quality engineers earn $105,000 to $125,000. Engineers with 3 to 5 years of ML data quality experience reach $140,000 to $185,000. Senior engineers and quality team leads earn $190,000 to $248,000, while directors of data quality at enterprise AI companies can command $255,000 to $330,000. In Raleigh, 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 provide equity grants of 12 to 22% of base salary. Bonuses range from 10 to 15% annually. Some firms offer additional compensation for maintaining critical data quality SLAs, adding $5,000 to $12,000 for on-call responsibilities. And on the tax side: north Carolina's flat 4.5% income tax keeps the burden low. Raleigh has no city income tax, and the Triangle's affordable housing amplifies your take home purchasing power. When someone quotes you $139,000, ask what the total package looks like. The gap between base and total comp is where real money hides.
On negotiation: Cite Research Triangle talent competition in your negotiation. Employers here compete directly with each other and with remote offers, creating favorable leverage for candidates. The range for AI Data Quality Engineers in Raleigh runs from $104,000 to $183,000. 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 Raleigh
Negotiating in Raleigh
Cite Research Triangle talent competition in your negotiation. Employers here compete directly with each other and with remote offers, creating favorable leverage for candidates.