AI experts

An Israeli newspaper, Haaretz recently reported that the average salary for Israeli tech experts working in artificial intelligence, in different multinational companies is higher than people working in other fields. The report mentions a 40% hike in payscale. Israel has a booming AI market and considering the rapid digital transformation and accelerated technology adoption in recent years, the AI ecosystem has grown even more. With more than 6000 startups, Israel provides an innovative space for disruptive technologies. 

According to data from Payscale, the average base salary of a machine learning engineer in Israel is NIS344,348 per annum (NIS- New Israeli Shekel). The Haaretz report quotes the data from a survey conducted by the Machine Learning and Deep Learning Israel community on Facebook. 

The MDLI Community Annual report for 2021 surveyed 1,250 people from the fields of Data Science and Machine Learning.  According to the survey, the average salary of employees in Tel Aviv was NIS38,500 per month, compared to NIS26,700 in Jerusalem. 

The report reveals that “For men, the average wage was NIS 37,300, while for women the average wage was about NIS 3,000.” This calculation very evidently speaks about the gender pay gap in Israel, which is about 8%. As usual tech giants in Israel also seem to be accommodating men more than other genders in the field of technology.  

The survey highlights that there were huge wage gaps between people working in the big 5, that is, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple and smaller companies. Due to the large tech giants’ ability to pay such high pay, smaller companies and startups usually find it difficult to compete with these multinationals. This lack of competitive edge might hinder their market value and employee traction too. 

The report has clearly stated the increase of average salary per month year-wise, with enough evidence. It says that three years back the average salary for AI experts in Israel was around NIS29,000. We can comprehend the surge. Is this because of the increased demand for AI and similar skills or a result of the booming growth of tech giants? While speaking to Haaretz, Uri Eliabayev, founder of MDLI said and quote, “It is customary to think that the salary battle is between startups and big companies, but this time we found out that the battle is also between the big corporations and the technology giants.” According to the MDLI survey, the most common job role was of a Data Scientist (40%), then others including Algorithm Developer and Machine Learning Engineer. 

The MDLI survey has thrown light upon the increasing payscale for AI experts working in bigger tech giants that have surged in these years, leaving the employees working in startups and other smaller companies behind with a smaller average pay. Although this indicates the growing demand for AI engineers, it, unfortunately, paints a picture of a wage gap between employees working in the same position in different companies.