The median AI Engineer in New York earns $169,832 in total compensation. The median in Poland is $53,994. That is a $115,838 gap, and a 3.15x multiple, at the middle of both distributions. Those two numbers will anchor every budget conversation you have this year. Here is what the full picture looks like, why it prices this way, and what it means if you are on either side of the negotiation.

Stop reading compensation data at the median. The shape of the distribution tells you whether you are looking at a pricing difference or a capability difference. This one has a clear answer.

Source: Levels.fyi, retrieved 2026-08-03. All figures are total compensation in USD. The multiple stays between 2.86x and 3.38x across all four percentiles. That flatness is the actual story. A market with genuinely thinner top-end talent would show the gap widening sharply at the upper percentiles, because scarce senior talent commands a premium. This distribution does not do that. The entire curve is shifted by a near-constant factor. That is what a pricing difference looks like, not a capability difference.

New York is one of the most intensely competitive tech hiring markets in the world. Major financial institutions, FAANG-tier engineering offices, and a dense startup ecosystem all compete for the same talent pool, within the same geography, under the same visa and payroll rules. That competition has pushed location-based pay materially above the national average, and it shows at every percentile.

Poland operates on a structurally different model. The dominant engagement form for senior engineers is not employment: it is B2B contracting. Around 70 to 80 percent of senior Polish engineers invoice as independent businesses rather than taking employment contracts. The compensation figures in the table above reflect this. When you hire a senior engineer in Poland, you are typically paying a contractor invoice, not running payroll. The employer avoids employer-side social contributions. The engineer handles their own taxes and social security. The mechanics of the transaction look nothing like a New York hire.

The B2B structure is not an accident. It is a rational response to the Polish tax code. An engineer on an employment contract who earns into the higher bracket faces a 32 percent marginal income tax rate. The same engineer invoicing through a registered business can access a flat 12 percent tax rate. The compensation figures in the table represent what gets paid, but the net-in-pocket outcome for a Polish contractor is materially better than a naive dollar-to-dollar comparison with a New York salary would imply.

New York compensation runs through US payroll, with withholding, benefits overhead, and employer-side contributions on top of wages. The quoted totals are employer cost, but the structure is completely different from an invoice-based B2B engagement.

New York total compensation is heavily weighted toward equity. Poland figures are largely cash. This is a required caveat, not a footnote: comparing the two totals directly overstates the take-home gap for individual engineers. A New York package at the median includes stock that vests over time, carries forfeiture risk, and fluctuates with public or private market valuations. A Polish contractor's invoice is cash on delivery. From an employer cost perspective, the totals are what get paid either way. For an engineer comparing offers, the composition matters enormously. Do not let a headline total obscure the structure underneath it.

Poland-based costs are incurred in złoty. New York compensation is priced in dollars. Exchange rate movement can widen or narrow the apparent gap for cross-border employers even when neither market changes its local pay settings. A US company budgeting a Warsaw-based hire in dollars is taking implicit FX exposure. That is not a reason to avoid the market; it is a variable to track.

This section exists because acting on headline numbers without understanding their limits is how hiring leaders make expensive mistakes. The Poland sample carries more uncertainty. Levels.fyi does not publish a submission count for the Polish market. Their US data, and New York specifically, is among the most robust compensation datasets available for tech roles. The Poland figures are best treated as the centre of a range rather than a precise price. The direction is reliable. The exact number is not. The 90th percentile is not the price of the best person in the market. Specialist LLM and generative AI engineers in Poland command materially more than the $114,000 90th percentile of the broad AI Engineer title. If you are hiring for a genuinely specialist generative AI role, expect to negotiate above the distribution ceiling this table shows. The title "AI Engineer" covers a wide range of actual work; the compensation reflects that average, not the frontier. The local number goes further than a conversion suggests. Because of the B2B tax structure described above, a Polish engineer's take-home on a $53,994 package is not equivalent to a New York engineer's take-home on the same number converted at spot rate. The Polish figure nets out differently. Engineers in Poland evaluating their market rate should factor this in. Hiring leaders should understand that competitive pay in Poland does not require matching New York totals to win strong candidates. Employer-side costs differ structurally. Under a B2B arrangement in Poland, employers avoid employer-side social contributions that would apply under an employment contract. Under a New York employee model, benefits, payroll taxes, and employer contributions add meaningful cost on top of the quoted compensation total. The table shows what gets paid to the engineer; it does not show total employer cost-of-seat.

The 3.15x median multiple has a concrete implication for how engineering leaders should think about team construction.

At the median, one New York AI Engineer costs $169,832. Three Poland-based AI Engineers at the median cost $161,982, with $7,850 remaining from that same budget. At the 25th percentile, one New York engineer at $130,000 funds two Poland engineers at $44,600 each, with $40,800 left. At the 75th percentile, one New York engineer at $217,000 funds two Poland engineers at $76,000, with $65,000 remaining. At the 90th percentile, one New York engineer at $385,000 funds three Poland engineers at $114,000, with $43,000 remaining.

Those are not arguments for wholesale offshoring. They are inputs to a team design decision that every engineering leader running a distributed or hybrid org needs to make explicitly rather than by default. The engineers doing the best work in Warsaw, Krakow, and Wroclaw are not cheaper versions of New York engineers. They are engineers operating in a different market, with different tax structures, different engagement norms, and different cost bases. The 3x multiple reflects geography and market structure. It does not reflect the quality of the work.

If you are an engineer in Poland: The $53,994 median is a market benchmark, not a ceiling. Specialist generative AI and LLM skills command above-market rates across the distribution. Your B2B structure means your effective net income on a given invoice rate is materially stronger than an employment comparison would suggest. Know both numbers before you negotiate. If you are an engineer in New York: The $169,832 median reflects a genuinely competitive market. The equity weighting in most packages means your realized compensation depends on vesting schedules and company outcomes. The total comp number is real, but the cash component lands differently than a Poland-equivalent cash package. If you are a hiring leader: The 3x multiple is stable across the entire distribution. You are not paying 3x for seniority or 3x for access to better talent. You are paying 3x for geography, market structure, and compensation conventions. That is a budget decision, not a quality signal. The question is not which market is better. It is which market fits the role, the team structure, and the work. AI engineering is global. The best teams in 2026 treat it that way, and price accordingly.