Salary · India LPA
AI Engineer salary in India
AI Engineer (GenAI) pay spiked for production RAG/LLM skills but varies wildly by employer funding. Wrapper projects sit far below product AI teams with eval and serving discipline.
LPA bands by experience
Ranges reflect mixed services + product hiring — not top-decile outliers or internship stipends.
| Experience | Typical fixed CTC band |
|---|---|
| 0–2 years | 8–16 LPA |
| 3–5 years | 14–28 LPA |
| 5–8 years | 22–45 LPA |
City and remote notes
- Bengaluru (BLR): product +10–15% vs mid
- Hyderabad (HYD): GCC competitive
- NCR (Delhi NCR): enterprise mix
- Pune: services mid
- Remote (India): remote tier-1 possible for niche stack
Negotiation tip
Separate wrapper demos from production GenAI — negotiate on eval harness, cost controls, and on-call for serving, not prompt experiments alone.
Related reading: Salary negotiation in India · SDE salary by YOE
FAQ
AI Engineer salary in India?
Wide bands: 0–2 YOE 8–16 LPA, 3–5 YOE 14–28 LPA, 5–8 YOE 22–45 LPA at product AI teams with shipped systems.
GenAI vs traditional ML pay?
Similar at same company often, but hype inflated some startup offers — diligence employer stability and actual AI revenue.
AI engineer negotiation tips?
Eval metrics, token cost saved, latency targets. Ask for GPU/cloud budget and clarity on research vs product delivery mix.