A recent report by J. Thelander Consulting, a compensation data and consulting firm for the private capital market revealed that many companies are “strategically overpaying” recruits with AI experience, offering premiums of as much as $200,000 for some roles.
The report, which was compiled from a compensation analysis of roles across 153 companies, showed that data scientists and analysts with machine learning skills received a higher premium than software engineers with the same skills. However, the consulting firm also tracked a rise in bonuses for lower-level software engineers and analysts.
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These payouts have interesting implications for the role of AI in the tech industry. According to reports, companies that have increased the use of AI to slash costs have found themselves rehiring humans to fix errors, and spending a lot more in the process. Sarah Skidd, a product marketing manager who writes for tech companies and startups recently told the BBC that she was being paid to “fix issues caused by AI.”
These payouts seem to be a big bet, particularly among startups. About half of the surveyed companies paying premiums for employees with AI skills had no revenue in the past year, and a majority (71%) had no profit. A spokesperson for the consulting firm told Business Insider that smaller firms need to stand out and be competitive among big tech giants, and this was likely a major factor driving the pricey recruitments. However, while this report focused on smaller companies, a few tech giants have also made the news for their huge recruitment incentives.
Meta was in the spotlight recently after Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said the social media giant had tried to poach his employees. While Altman later said that “none of his best people” were enticed by the offers, Andrew Bosworth said in an interview with CNBC that Altman “neglected to mention that he’s countering those offers.”
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Nevertheless, Meta did manage to recruit several high level employees for its AI team from OpenAI and other prominent companies. These include senior researchers Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov, and Xiaohua Zhai from OpenAI’s Zurich team, as well as another OpenAI researcher Trapit Bansal.
Ruoming Pang who was reportedly leading Apple’s in-house AI modeling team also joined Meta, as did Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang, and Safe Superintelligence CEO Daniel Gross. Most of these recruits are expected to join Meta’s superintelligence labs, a division created by Zuckerberg to accelerate AGI development.