AI Algorithm Engineer

$118K - $188K Santa Clara, CA, US Mid Level AI/ML Engineer

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Skills & Technologies

AutogenChromaFaissHugging FaceLangchainLlamaindexPrompt EngineeringPythonRag

About This Role

AI job market dashboard showing open roles by category

Job Details:

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Job Description:

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Intel is shaping the future of technology to help create a better future for the entire world. Our work in pushing forward fields like AI, analytics, and cloud\-to\-edge technology is at the heart of countless innovations. With a career at Intel, you'll have the opportunity to use technology to power major breakthroughs and create enhancements that improve our everyday quality of life. Join us and help make the future more wonderful for everyone.

Life at Intel

The Ai Algorithm Engineer:

  • Designs and builds generative AI agents and AI platforms leveraging both local and cloud\-based large language models (LLMs). Develops AI\-powered products and solutions that enable intelligent reasoning, automation, and human\-AI interaction for real\-world use cases.
  • Builds and integrates GenAI systems using local LLMs and cloud\-hosted LLM services, focusing on agent orchestration, tool usage, retrieval\-augmented workflows, and system\-level optimization. Collaborates closely with users and stakeholders to define requirements and deliver impactful AI solutions.
  • Translates AI agent logic, LLM workflows, and data pipelines into production\-quality software using modern programming practices. Responsible for end\-to\-end development, including implementation, testing, debugging, documentation, and deployment of AI services, tools, and platforms.

Qualifications:

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Minimum qualifications are required to be initially considered for this position. Preferred qualifications are in addition to the minimum requirements and are considered a plus factor in identifying top candidates.

You must possess the minimum qualifications to be initially considered for this position. Preferred qualifications are in addition to the minimum requirements and are considered a plus factor in identifying top candidates.

Minimum Qualifications:

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical/Computer Engineering, or a related field.
  • 3\+ months experience with C\+\+

3\+ months experience with Python.

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Preferred Qualifications

  • Experience with frameworks and ecosystems such as LangChain, LlamaIndex, AutoGen, Hugging Face, and related APIs.
  • Knowledge of Retrieval\-Augmented Generation (RAG), vector databases (e.g., FAISS, Chroma), and embedding\-based search.
  • Experience with prompt engineering and/or UX/UI considerations to improve human\-AI interaction.
  • Familiarity with deploying, scaling, and optimizing AI agent platforms across local and cloud environments.
  • Familiarity with building simple AI agents, chatbots, or LLM\-based applications via academic or personal projects.
  • Interest in AI agents, GenAI platforms, and real\-world AI applications.
  • Strong problem\-solving skills and willingness to learn new technologies.

Good communication skills and ability to work in a team environment.

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Qualification requirements may be met through academic coursework, community projects, or on\-the\-job experience.

Benefits at Intel

Our total rewards package goes above and beyond just a paycheck. Whether you're looking to build your career, improve your health, or protect your wealth, we offer generous benefits to help you achieve your goals. Go to Intel Benefits \| Intel Careers for details of benefits available to you. Intel reserves the right to modify, change or discontinue benefit plans at any time in its sole discretion.

Job Type:

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College Grad

Shift:

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Shift 1 (United States of America)

Primary Location:

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US, California, Santa Clara

Additional Locations:

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US, California, Folsom, US, Oregon, Hillsboro

Business group:

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Intel makes possible the most amazing experiences of the future. You may know us for our processors. But we do so much more. Intel invents at the boundaries of technology to make amazing experiences possible for business and society, and for every person on Earth. Harnessing the capability of the cloud, the ubiquity of the Internet of Things, the latest advances in memory and programmable solutions, and the promise of always\-on 5G connectivity, Intel is disrupting industries and solving global challenges. Leading on policy, diversity, inclusion, education and sustainability, we create value for our stockholders, customers, and society.

Posting Statement:

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All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, religious creed, sex, national origin, ancestry, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, military and veteran status, marital status, pregnancy, gender, gender expression, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by local law, regulation, or ordinance.

Position of Trust

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N/A

Benefits

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We offer a total compensation package that ranks among the best in the industry. It consists of competitive pay, stock bonuses, and benefit programs which include health, retirement, and vacation. Find out more about the benefits of working at Intel .

Annual Salary Range for jobs which could be performed in the US: $118,850\.00\-188,340\.00 USD

The range displayed on this job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target compensation for the position across all US locations. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job\-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Your recruiter can share more about the specific compensation range for your preferred location during the hiring process.

Work Model for this Role

This role will be eligible for our hybrid work model which allows employees to split their time between working on\-site at their assigned Intel site and off\-site. \* Job posting details (such as work model, location or time type) are subject to change.

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Intel is committed to Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) compliance and ethical hiring practices. We do not charge any fees during our hiring process. Candidates should never be required to pay recruitment fees, medical examination fees, or any other charges as a condition of employment. If you are asked to pay any fees during our hiring process, please report this immediately to your recruiter.

Salary Context

This $118K-$188K range is below the median for AI/ML Engineer roles in our dataset (median: $180K across 2130 roles with salary data).

View full AI/ML Engineer salary data →

Role Details

Title AI Algorithm Engineer
Location Santa Clara, CA, US
Category AI/ML Engineer
Experience Mid Level
Salary $118K - $188K
Remote No

About This Role

AI/ML Engineers build and deploy machine learning models in production. They work across the full ML lifecycle: data pipelines, model training, evaluation, and serving infrastructure. The role has evolved significantly over the past two years. Where ML Engineers once spent most of their time on model architecture, the job now tilts heavily toward inference optimization, cost management, and integrating LLM capabilities into existing systems. Companies want engineers who can ship production systems, and the experimenter-only role is fading fast.

Day-to-day, you're writing training pipelines, debugging data quality issues, setting up evaluation frameworks, and figuring out why your model performs differently in staging than it did on your dev set. The best ML engineers are obsessive about reproducibility and measurement. They instrument everything. They know that a model is only as good as the data feeding it and the infrastructure serving it.

Across the 4,133 AI roles we're tracking, AI/ML Engineer positions make up 69% of the market. At Intel Corporation, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.

Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.

What the Work Looks Like

A typical week might include: debugging a data pipeline that's silently dropping 3% of training examples, running A/B tests on a new model version, writing documentation for a feature flag system that lets you roll back model deployments, and reviewing a junior engineer's PR for a new evaluation metric. Meetings tend to be cross-functional since ML touches product, engineering, and data teams.

Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.

Skills Required

Autogen (3% of roles) Chroma (1% of roles) Faiss (1% of roles) Hugging Face (4% of roles) Langchain (11% of roles) Llamaindex (4% of roles) Prompt Engineering (15% of roles) Python (51% of roles) Rag (22% of roles)

Python and PyTorch dominate the requirements. Most roles expect experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and familiarity with ML frameworks like TensorFlow or JAX. RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) has become a top-3 skill requirement as companies integrate LLMs into their products. Docker and Kubernetes show up in about a third of postings, reflecting the production focus of the role.

Beyond the core stack, employers increasingly want experience with experiment tracking tools (MLflow, Weights & Biases), feature stores, and vector databases. Fine-tuning experience is valuable but less common than you'd think from reading Twitter. Most production LLM work is RAG and prompt engineering, not fine-tuning. If you have both, you're in a strong position.

Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.

Compensation Benchmarks

AI/ML Engineer roles pay a median of $185,000 based on 13,200 positions with disclosed compensation. Mid-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $165,778. This role's midpoint ($153K) sits 17% below the category median. Disclosed range: $118K to $188K.

Across all AI roles, the market median is $200,700. Top-quartile compensation starts at $254,000. The 90th percentile reaches $307,500. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($274,200) and AI Engineering Manager ($268,700). By seniority level: Entry: $97,760; Mid: $165,778; Senior: $227,400; Director: $250,000; VP: $250,000.

Intel Corporation AI Hiring

Intel Corporation has 4 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across Research Scientist, AI/ML Engineer. Positions span Santa Clara, CA, US, Hillsboro, OR, US. Compensation range: $188K - $413K.

Location Context

Across all AI roles, 14% (583 positions) offer remote work, while 3,532 require on-site attendance. Top AI hiring metros: New York (2,760 roles, $211,000 median); San Francisco (2,258 roles, $253,000 median); Los Angeles (1,841 roles, $195,000 median).

Career Path

Common paths into AI/ML Engineer roles include Data Scientist, Software Engineer, Research Engineer.

From here, career progression typically leads toward ML Architect, AI Engineering Manager, Principal ML Engineer.

The fastest path into ML engineering is through software engineering with a self-directed ML education. A CS degree helps, but production engineering skills matter more than academic credentials. Build something that works, deploy it, and measure it. That portfolio project is worth more than a Coursera certificate. For career growth, the fork comes around the senior level: go deep on technical complexity (staff/principal track) or move into managing ML teams.

What to Expect in Interviews

Expect system design questions around ML pipelines: how you'd build a training pipeline for a specific use case, handle data drift, or design A/B testing infrastructure for model deployments. Coding rounds typically involve Python, with emphasis on data manipulation (pandas, numpy) and algorithm implementation. Take-home assignments often ask you to build an end-to-end ML pipeline from raw data to deployed model.

When evaluating opportunities: Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.

AI Hiring Overview

The AI job market has 4,133 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 106 entry-level, 1,901 mid-level, 1,663 senior, and 463 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 14% of the market (583 positions). The remaining 3,532 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.

The market median for AI roles is $200,700. Top-quartile compensation starts at $254,000. The 90th percentile reaches $307,500. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($274,200 median, 57 roles); AI Engineering Manager ($268,700 median, 42 roles); Research Engineer ($260,000 median, 442 roles).

Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.

The AI Job Market Today

The AI job market spans 4,133 open positions across 15 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (2,865), Data Scientist (339), AI Software Engineer (313). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.

The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (106) are outnumbered by mid-level (1,901) and senior (1,663) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 463 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.

Remote work availability sits at 14% of all AI roles (583 positions), with 3,532 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.

AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $200,700. Top-quartile roles start at $254,000, and the 90th percentile reaches $307,500. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.

Category matters for compensation. AI Safety roles lead at $274,200 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $140,000. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.

The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Python (2,128 postings), Aws (1,324 postings), Azure (1,003 postings), Rag (916 postings), Gcp (817 postings), Pytorch (655 postings), Prompt Engineering (639 postings), Claude (571 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.

Frequently Asked Questions

Based on 13,200 roles with disclosed compensation, the median salary for AI/ML Engineer positions is $185,000. Actual compensation varies by seniority, location, and company stage.
Python and PyTorch dominate the requirements. Most roles expect experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and familiarity with ML frameworks like TensorFlow or JAX. RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) has become a top-3 skill requirement as companies integrate LLMs into their products. Docker and Kubernetes show up in about a third of postings, reflecting the production focus of the role.
About 14% of the 4,133 AI roles we track offer remote work. Remote availability varies by company and seniority level, with senior and leadership roles more likely to offer location flexibility.
Intel Corporation is among the companies actively hiring for AI and ML talent. Check our company profiles for detailed breakdowns of open roles, salary ranges, and hiring trends.
Common next steps from AI/ML Engineer positions include ML Architect, AI Engineering Manager, Principal ML Engineer. Progression depends on whether you lean toward technical depth, people management, or product strategy.

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