Data Scientist Salary in Austin — 2026 BLS Data

$155K median base salary · Austin
BLS OEWS · 2024 data

Salary distribution

Percentile breakdown of Data Scientist base salaries in Austin.

If you are sizing up an Austin data science offer against one from the Bay or NYC, the base salary number on the offer letter rarely tells you the real story. Austin pays well for DS work, but the mix between base, bonus, equity, and the absence of state income tax tilts the math in ways that only show up once you actually look at take-home. This guide pulls the latest BLS OEWS percentiles for the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos metro, layers in 2026 Levels.fyi compensation data from Tesla, Oracle, Apple, AMD, Indeed, and Google, and translates the numbers into something you can use during a real negotiation.

How Austin data scientist salaries compare

The Austin data scientist market sits in a clean second tier behind the Bay Area and New York, with a narrower gap than the gross numbers suggest. The 2024 BLS OEWS release for the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos MSA puts data scientists at a median annual wage near $155K, with the 25th percentile around $115K, the 75th percentile around $210K, and the 90th percentile clearing $300K once senior and staff-level pay enters the mix.

For direct comparison against other hubs in early 2026:

  • San Francisco Bay Area — Levels.fyi median total comp for data scientists tracks roughly $215K, with senior medians clearing $290K.
  • New York City — Median total comp around $195K, with senior IC bands at $260K–$310K.
  • Seattle — Median around $200K, helped by Amazon and Microsoft refresh cadences.
  • Remote-US — Median around $170K, with wide variance based on whether bands are geo-pegged.
  • Austin — Levels.fyi reports a current average total compensation of $167K, with the typical mid-to-senior range running $134K–$250K, and the Built In Austin survey showing a broader-population average of $122K base plus $13K additional cash for $136K total.

Austin pays roughly 75–80 percent of Bay Area cash plus equity for the same level. The post-tax picture closes that gap considerably, as the next sections show.

What drives the spread in Austin

The wide gap between the 25th and 90th percentiles in Austin is a function of employer mix, not seniority alone. The metro stacks four distinct DS salary tiers on top of each other, and which tier you land in matters more than how many years you have been doing the job.

At the top sit the FAANG and FAANG-adjacent offices. Google’s Austin DS roles pay $143K–$357K depending on level, with L4 total compensation around $258K and a median package near $248K. Apple’s Austin DS bands run from mid-level around $180K to senior IC pay above $290K. Meta’s smaller Austin DS footprint pays toward the top of the city’s range.

The second tier is the large public tech employers with deep Austin engineering or product orgs. Tesla’s Austin DS roles, anchored at Gigafactory and the Palo Alto-to-Austin migration, pay mid-level total comp in the $160K–$220K band with senior bands clearing $300K. Oracle, post-HQ relocation, pays a more conservative base-heavy structure with mid-level DS total comp in the $145K–$185K range. AMD’s growing AI and silicon-data teams pay similar bands, with equity refreshers tied to the chip cycle. Indeed, headquartered in Austin, runs a notably strong DS comp band — Levels.fyi puts Indeed’s data scientists at $161K (L1) up to $300K (L3) total comp, with an average of $280K, making it the highest-paying DS employer in the city by that source.

The third tier is the funded startup ecosystem. Companies like Cart.com, ICON, Q2, Workrise, and dozens of Series B–D AI and analytics startups pay DS roles in the $130K–$170K total comp range with heavier equity skew. Series A pay tends to be base-only at $120K–$145K with equity grants that are mostly lottery tickets until a priced round confirms them.

The fourth tier is local product companies, healthcare and finance employers (USAA, Charles Schwab, Whole Foods), and agency-style analytics work where DS pay sits closer to the BLS 25th percentile of $115K. These roles often carry “data scientist” titles but skew toward analyst-style scope, which is why Built In Austin’s broader survey average of $122K runs below the Levels.fyi mid-point.

Where an Austin DS offer lands depends almost entirely on which tier the employer falls into.

Total comp in Austin

The structure of an Austin DS offer typically looks different from a Bay Area equivalent. Equity grants tend to be smaller in absolute dollars, sign-on bonuses are tighter, and base salaries are competitive while the after-tax math closes the gap.

A representative mid-level Austin DS offer at a public tech company in 2026 looks something like:

  • Base salary: $155,000
  • Target annual bonus: $18,000 (10–15% of base, typical at Tesla, Oracle, AMD, Indeed)
  • Equity (annualized): $30,000 (four-year vest, smaller refresh cadence than Bay Area HQ teams)
  • Sign-on: $10,000–$20,000, often clawed back if you leave inside 12 months

That puts the typical total comp at around $203K, lined up with the BLS 75th percentile and Levels.fyi’s mid-senior bands. Senior data scientists (L5/E5 equivalent) routinely land $250K–$300K, and staff-level DS at the FAANG offices and Indeed clear $350K once refreshers stack.

Two structural differences from the Bay Area worth budgeting for:

  1. Less equity-heavy. Even at Apple and Tesla, Austin DS grants tend to run 70–80 percent of equivalent Bay Area grants for the same level. Recruiters will frame this as a “lower cost of living adjustment,” and it is real but worth pushing back on if the offer is meaningfully below band.
  2. No state income tax. Texas has no state income tax. A $180K base in Austin nets roughly $12K–$16K more per year than the same base in California after state taxes, and roughly $8K–$13K more than New York. This is the single biggest reason Austin DS offers punch above their gross weight.

COL-adjusted comparison

Austin’s cost of living index sits at roughly 119.3 against a US baseline of 100. San Francisco runs at 178.6, NYC at 168, Seattle at 142. Housing is the dominant driver in all four markets, and Austin’s housing prices have softened from their 2022 peak but remain well above the national average.

Once both salary and tax burden are adjusted, the picture flips for plenty of mid-level offers. A $180K Austin base with no state tax and a $1.3M median home price for a desirable neighborhood produces a take-home and savings rate that rivals a $235K San Francisco base with 9.3 percent state tax and a $1.8M home. For senior IC roles, San Francisco still pulls ahead on absolute dollars once equity is factored in, but the COL-adjusted gap narrows to roughly 8–12 percent rather than the 25–30 percent suggested by gross numbers.

The break-even point for most data scientists lands at the senior-staff transition. Below that level, Austin’s after-tax position is competitive or better. Above it, the equity ceiling in the Bay Area opens back up.

Negotiation playbook

A few moves that consistently work in Austin DS negotiations in 2026:

  • Anchor on Levels.fyi medians for your specific company and level, not on BLS averages. Recruiters at Tesla, Oracle, AMD, Apple, and Indeed all know their own Levels.fyi data. Showing up with “median total comp at your company for this level is $X, my offer is $Y” gets a faster response than abstract market data.
  • Negotiate base first, then equity, then sign-on. Base compounds every year and feeds bonus targets. A $10K base bump beats a $25K sign-on over any four-year window.
  • Use the no-state-tax argument in reverse. If a recruiter tries to discount the offer because “Austin has no state income tax,” counter with the fact that federal rates are unchanged and that local property taxes in Travis and Williamson counties run 2.0–2.4 percent of assessed value, among the highest in the country.
  • Push for an equity refresh schedule in writing. Austin offices at public tech companies sometimes run inconsistent refresh cadences relative to HQ. Get the expected refresh window (typically year 2 and year 4) documented before signing.
  • Get competing offers. Even one credible peer-company offer (Tesla vs. Apple, Oracle vs. AMD, Indeed vs. Google, startup vs. public co) gives the recruiter cover to move the band. Three offers in flight will move it materially.
  • Quantify your scope, not your title. Austin DS roles vary wildly in scope between companies — “data scientist” at a startup can mean ML engineer, while at Oracle it can mean analyst. Walk into the conversation with a concrete list of models shipped, business outcomes attributed, and team size, not just a job title.

Tracking offers, follow-ups, and recruiter conversations in one place is how the timing leverage in the playbook above actually gets used.

Caveats

The numbers in this guide are aggregates and should not be read as a specific offer band. A few things to keep in mind:

  • BLS OEWS data lags by roughly 12–18 months. The 2024 release reflects wages paid in May 2024, before some of the tech-sector pay corrections that landed in late 2024 and 2025.
  • Levels.fyi data skews toward self-reported senior and staff data scientists at well-known companies. Total comp medians from that source tend to run 10–15 percent above the true market median at any given level.
  • Built In Austin’s reported $122K average covers a broader population including junior and analyst-style DS roles, which is why their average runs below the percentile data shown here.
  • Equity values assume the stock price holds. Refreshes, RSU vesting cliffs, and stock movement can swing realized comp by 30 percent or more in either direction over a four-year window.
  • The state-tax math assumes Texas residency. If you split time between Austin and a state with income tax, the post-tax position may not match the headline calculation.

Use the percentiles as a sanity check, the company-specific Levels.fyi pages as the real anchor, and your own offer history as the final benchmark.

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