Under 25 And Earning $1 Million: The New AI Job Market

The job market for new graduates is sluggish. In June, unemployment for recent college grads was 4.8%, compared with 4% for all workers, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

But there’s one big exception: AI talent. Young professionals in their early 20s with machine-learning skills are commanding extraordinary pay. Some are earning $1 million a year, according to the Wall Street Journal.

A report from AI staffing firm Burtch Works found that base salaries for nonmanagerial AI professionals with zero to three years’ experience rose about 12% from 2024 to 2025—the fastest growth of any group. These workers are also being promoted to management roles roughly twice as quickly as peers in other tech fields, thanks to skills and impact rather than tenure.

“There is a significant salary difference between a machine-learning engineer job and a software-engineer job,” says Anil K. Gupta, professor at the University of Maryland.

At Databricks, entry-level AI hires now receive base salaries of $190,000–$260,000, with stock pushing total compensation far higher. “Under 25, you can be making a million,” says CEO Ali Ghodsi, who calls them “AI-native” workers. “We can’t for the life of us get the more senior people to adopt it.”

The Journal writes that other companies are chasing similar talent. Scale AI says about 15% of its employees are under 25, with starting salaries near $200,000. “We’re eager to hire AI-native professionals, and many of those candidates are early in their careers,” says Ashli Shiftan, the company’s head of people.

Levels.fyi has tracked 42 AI offers exceeding $1 million, including nine given to candidates with less than a decade of workplace experience. Even Roblox has offered entry-level ML engineers packages above $200,000.

The demand is so fierce that some firms are threatening legal action against rivals trying to poach their youngest talent.

Meanwhile, students are jumping straight from academia into lucrative roles. Jure Leskovec of Stanford notes Ph.D. candidates leaving early after being “snatched up by companies with large offers before they have any industry experience.” As he puts it: “The number of zeros is quite large.”

Others without advanced degrees but strong AI skills are also pulling ahead of traditional programmers. “It’s almost like a next generation of a software engineer,” says Leskovec.

The startup CTGT, co-founded by Cyril Gorlla, has an average employee age of 21. Some staff now hold equity valued at $500,000. Gorlla, 23, says he’s even received applications from 16-year-olds with published AI research. “I definitely did not see that a few years ago.”

One recent graduate, Lily Ma of Carnegie Mellon, applied for 30–40 jobs and interviewed at a dozen companies before choosing Scale AI. “I did notice that having research experience helps a lot,” she says.