AI Startup Jobs: 13,514 Roles Open at 1,100 Companies in November 2026

On 4 November 2026, a fresh count of live job postings showed 1,100 AI startups advertising 13,514 roles between them, a snapshot that gives jobseekers a clear picture of where AI startup jobs are actually open right now. The AI startup jobs count, updated on 4 November 2026 by The Anti-Job Board from the companies' own careers pages, covers AI labs, AI products and agents, and the chips, clouds and data those systems run on. San Francisco, New York and London hold the largest shares, but 784 of the startups list remote roles, and the median base pay across the 3,926 roles that state a salary is $190,000 a year.

Source of the count	The Anti-Job Board, read from company careers pages and checked daily
Count date	4 November 2026
Companies with live roles	1,100 AI startups
Total live roles	13,514
Median base pay (roles stating pay)	$190,000 a year; middle half $153,000 to $235,000
Roles stating pay	3,926 of the 13,514
Remote roles	4,587 roles at 784 startups
Largest hiring hubs	San Francisco (2,849 roles), New York (1,654), London (772)
Most roles at one company	OpenAI (322), Shield AI (301), Anthropic (261), Speechify (255), Databricks (251)

AI startup jobs: where the hiring is concentrated

The geography of the count is uneven. San Francisco accounts for 2,849 roles across 375 companies, New York for 1,654 roles across 328 companies, and London for 772 roles across 189 companies, followed by Toronto with 160 roles and Berlin with 112. The remote figure changes the picture for readers outside those cities: 4,587 roles, more than a third of the total, are listed as remote by 784 startups. A candidate in Nepal or India can therefore apply for a real share of this market, provided the posting itself allows applications from their country, since a remote label does not always mean worldwide eligibility.

The count's method matters before treating the numbers as a hiring promise. The Anti-Job Board reads each company's own careers page and counts a firm as an AI startup only when at least 60 per cent of its live postings describe a business that builds AI, or what AI runs on: models, AI products and agents, chips, GPU clouds and training data. Recruiters posting other companies' roles are left out. The total moves daily as postings open and close, so 13,514 is a reading for 4 November 2026, not a fixed quota.

Who is hiring the most, and what they build

Five companies sit well ahead of the rest. OpenAI leads with 322 live roles, followed by Shield AI with 301, Anthropic with 261, Speechify with 255 and Databricks with 251. The board describes Anthropic as an AI research company focused on safety, Speechify as a text-to-speech app that reads PDFs and books aloud, and Databricks as a data and AI platform for large companies. Below the top five, hiring spreads across legal AI platforms, infrastructure firms, GPU cloud providers, video security companies, healthcare platforms and defence firms, all hiring under the same AI label but asking for different skills.

The role families the board lists give a second clue about demand: machine learning engineer, AI engineer, forward deployed engineer, deployment strategist, GTM engineer and AI product manager. Deployment roles sit between building a model and getting it working inside a customer's business, and they often value product sense and client work alongside code.

What the pay figures do, and do not, show

The pay headline needs care. The $190,000 median covers base pay only, and only for the 3,926 roles that state pay, out of 13,514 in total. The middle half of those stated salaries runs from $153,000 to $235,000 a year, and the board notes the figure mixes every role and level together, from junior posts to senior leadership. Individual company medians vary widely, from $344,000 at the AI safety lab in the top three to $170,000 at the text-to-speech company. A median is not an offer, and equity, bonuses and location adjustments, which the base-pay figure leaves out, can change total pay a great deal. Ask for the full package in writing before judging one role against another.

Set this count against the wider picture. Growentix reported on 3 November 2026 that United States employers announced 153,074 job cuts in October 2026, with AI cited in a large share of them, while Indian AI hiring rose in October even as overall hiring stayed uneven. Large employers trimming roles and smaller AI firms adding staff can happen at the same time in the same market.

AI startup jobs: how to apply, and what to do next

Start from the company's own careers page, not from a forwarded post. The board's list is built from those pages, and applying through them avoids the re-posted listings that sometimes carry old closing dates. Before applying, check three things on the posting itself: the location rule, including whether remote means worldwide or limited to named countries; the work authorisation line, since many United States roles require existing authorisation and do not offer sponsorship; and the stated salary band, where one is given, so the conversation about pay starts from a published figure rather than a guess.

Tailor the application to the kind of firm, not just the job title. A lab will weigh publications and model work, a legal AI platform will weigh domain knowledge and customer deployments, and a chip or GPU cloud firm will weigh systems experience. Keep a record of every application, including the date and the posting text, because startup postings close without notice.

Finally, treat any request for payment with suspicion. Genuine AI startups do not charge candidates to apply, to interview, or to receive an offer, and they do not ask for fees for equipment, training or visa processing before employment begins. If a message claiming to come from a named startup asks for money, stop and contact the company through the address on its own website. The hiring is real, with 13,514 roles counted on 4 November 2026, but the safest route into it is the employer's own page, checked role by role.

Sources: The Anti-Job Board, "AI Startups Hiring Now: 1,100 Companies (November 2026)", updated 4 November 2026; company careers pages as counted by the board.