AI Engineer Jobs in USA with Visa Sponsorship
AI engineers who specialize in taking models from research prototypes to production-grade systems are in surging demand across US companies scaling their AI capabilities. Unlike research-focused roles, AI engineering emphasizes MLOps, model serving, and building reliable inference pipelines - skills that are scarce and highly valued by employers filing sponsorship petitions. If you can bridge the gap between a trained model and a product that serves millions of users, US companies will sponsor your visa to do exactly that. For detailed occupation requirements, see the O*NET profile.
Find AI Engineer JobsOverview
Showing 5 of 4,963+ AI Engineer jobs
See all 4,963+ AI Engineer Jobs
Sign up for free to unlock all listings, filter by visa type, and get alerts for new AI Engineer roles.
Get Access To All JobsBuild Rotto end-to-end: the AI product recruiters search and hire with, from first prompt to paid subscription.
- $130k to $160k USD
- Early employee equity
- NYC
- In person
- Full time
- Health insurance
- 20 days PTO
- Visa sponsorship
- Relocation
Stack: TypeScript · Next.js · React · Vercel · Supabase · Postgres · Stripe · LLMs
About Rotto
Rotto is an AI search engine for recruiting. A recruiter describes the hire in plain English, and a hybrid semantic and lexical retrieval engine parses the intent, embeds it, and ranks millions of candidate profiles in real time.
It is built by the same team behind Migrate Mate, the job board for international talent in the US, which earned our founders Forbes 30 Under 30. We are a team of seven. We've raised $3M and are now hiring to scale Rotto and launch new products.
We move very fast with basically zero bureaucracy. You will work directly with the founders (& engineering team) every day. We work five days a week, 10 to 11 hours a day, in person, and occasionally on Saturdays. This is an ASAP hire: we would like you to start within weeks of an offer.
What you will work on
- Features end to end, from idea to production: the interface, the API and the database behind it.
- The AI features recruiters use every day, like natural language candidate search, built on Claude and OpenAI.
- The flows that turn a visitor into a paying recruiter: onboarding, billing on Stripe, and growth.
What we are looking for
We don't care about years of experience, education or pedigree. We just want you to be cracked at shipping product end to end.
Must haves
- You love building and owning features end to end, with full autonomy and responsibility.
- You ship production code at lightning speed.
- You are a highly motivated self-starter and a jack of all trades.
- You are happy talking directly with customers
- You are AI native but not AI reliant: you use AI to move fast, and understand what it writes well enough to change it without AI.
Nice to haves
- TypeScript and Next.js, hosted on Vercel.
- Supabase (Postgres and auth) and Stripe for payments.
- Mixpanel for product analytics.
- You have shipped LLM features in production.
- You have worked at a job board, recruiting AI or data provider company.
- You have worked at (or founded) an early-stage startup.
Is this you?
You'll thrive if
- You learn unusually fast and can be useful on an unknown topic within a day.
- Not knowing doesn't scare you, it excites you to learn.
- You are happy with little structure and manage yourself.
- You have a can-do attitude. You solve hard challenges without complaining.
- You communicate clearly and can explain the same idea to a customer and to a senior engineer.
- You push back on bad ideas, without questioning every decision.
Don't apply if
- You want a clear spec, a roadmap and a process to follow.
- You want to work remotely or hybrid.
- You want a 40-hour week. "Nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week" - Elon Musk
- You need a big team around you before you can ship.
Work Authorization
We sponsor visas and will relocate the right person to New York. U.S. citizens, people with work authorization and people who need sponsorship can all apply.
US Citizens · Green Card Holders · E-3 · F-1 OPT · H-1B (transfer only) · H-1B1 · J-1 · O-1 · TN
How hiring works
- Apply: Two minutes, below.
- Assessment: If you are a fit, we email you a technical assessment.
- Code review call: We go through your code together.
- Culture-fit interview: We want to get to know you as a person.
- In-person trial: Work with us in NYC. We'll cover costs. Based on your schedule.
- Offer: You could be starting at Rotto within weeks.
Applications close when we find the right fit.
Build Rotto end-to-end: the AI product recruiters search and hire with, from first prompt to paid subscription.
- $130k to $160k USD
- Early employee equity
- NYC
- In person
- Full time
- Health insurance
- 20 days PTO
- Visa sponsorship
- Relocation
Stack: TypeScript · Next.js · React · Vercel · Supabase · Postgres · Stripe · LLMs
About Rotto
Rotto is an AI search engine for recruiting. A recruiter describes the hire in plain English, and a hybrid semantic and lexical retrieval engine parses the intent, embeds it, and ranks millions of candidate profiles in real time.
It is built by the same team behind Migrate Mate, the job board for international talent in the US, which earned our founders Forbes 30 Under 30. We are a team of seven. We've raised $3M and are now hiring to scale Rotto and launch new products.
We move very fast with basically zero bureaucracy. You will work directly with the founders (& engineering team) every day. We work five days a week, 10 to 11 hours a day, in person, and occasionally on Saturdays. This is an ASAP hire: we would like you to start within weeks of an offer.
What you will work on
- Features end to end, from idea to production: the interface, the API and the database behind it.
- The AI features recruiters use every day, like natural language candidate search, built on Claude and OpenAI.
- The flows that turn a visitor into a paying recruiter: onboarding, billing on Stripe, and growth.
What we are looking for
We don't care about years of experience, education or pedigree. We just want you to be cracked at shipping product end to end.
Must haves
- You love building and owning features end to end, with full autonomy and responsibility.
- You ship production code at lightning speed.
- You are a highly motivated self-starter and a jack of all trades.
- You are happy talking directly with customers
- You are AI native but not AI reliant: you use AI to move fast, and understand what it writes well enough to change it without AI.
Nice to haves
- TypeScript and Next.js, hosted on Vercel.
- Supabase (Postgres and auth) and Stripe for payments.
- Mixpanel for product analytics.
- You have shipped LLM features in production.
- You have worked at a job board, recruiting AI or data provider company.
- You have worked at (or founded) an early-stage startup.
Is this you?
You'll thrive if
- You learn unusually fast and can be useful on an unknown topic within a day.
- Not knowing doesn't scare you, it excites you to learn.
- You are happy with little structure and manage yourself.
- You have a can-do attitude. You solve hard challenges without complaining.
- You communicate clearly and can explain the same idea to a customer and to a senior engineer.
- You push back on bad ideas, without questioning every decision.
Don't apply if
- You want a clear spec, a roadmap and a process to follow.
- You want to work remotely or hybrid.
- You want a 40-hour week. "Nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week" - Elon Musk
- You need a big team around you before you can ship.
Work Authorization
We sponsor visas and will relocate the right person to New York. U.S. citizens, people with work authorization and people who need sponsorship can all apply.
US Citizens · Green Card Holders · E-3 · F-1 OPT · H-1B (transfer only) · H-1B1 · J-1 · O-1 · TN
How hiring works
- Apply: Two minutes, below.
- Assessment: If you are a fit, we email you a technical assessment.
- Code review call: We go through your code together.
- Culture-fit interview: We want to get to know you as a person.
- In-person trial: Work with us in NYC. We'll cover costs. Based on your schedule.
- Offer: You could be starting at Rotto within weeks.
Applications close when we find the right fit.
See all 4,963+ AI Engineer Jobs
Sign up for free to unlock all listings, filter by visa type, and get alerts for new AI Engineer roles.
Get Access To All JobsTips for Finding Visa Sponsorship as an AI Engineer
Position yourself at the intersection of AI and engineering
AI Engineer is a fast-growing title that bridges ML research and production software. Highlight experience deploying models, building RAG pipelines, or integrating LLMs into products - these applied skills are what companies are hiring for.
Target companies actively building AI engineering teams
Companies from startups to enterprises are creating new AI engineering roles and sponsoring H-1B petitions to fill them. Databricks, Notion, Figma, and similar companies have expanded AI headcount specifically because demand outpaces domestic supply.
Clarify your SOC code with your employer
AI Engineer roles can file under SOC 15-1252 (Software Developers) if engineering-focused or 15-2051 (Data Scientists) if research-heavy. The right choice depends on your day-to-day duties - work with your employer's immigration attorney to match accurately.
Use STEM OPT to build production AI experience
A STEM-eligible degree gives you up to 3 years of work authorization through OPT. Ship real AI features during that time - companies are far more likely to sponsor an engineer who already knows their codebase and deployment stack.
Differentiate yourself with full-stack AI skills
Many AI engineers can fine-tune models but struggle with production infrastructure. Expertise in model serving, API design, latency optimization, and monitoring makes you harder to replace and gives employers a stronger reason to sponsor.
Consider the O-1 path if you have notable AI work
Significant open-source contributions, widely used AI tools, or media coverage of your work can support an O-1 extraordinary ability petition. You don't need a PhD - demonstrated impact in applied AI can qualify.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between an AI engineer and a machine learning engineer for visa sponsorship purposes?
For immigration purposes, the distinction matters less than how the employer describes the role in the petition. AI engineer roles tend to emphasize building end-to-end AI-powered products, integrating LLMs, and designing retrieval-augmented generation systems. ML engineer roles focus more on model training infrastructure and serving pipelines. Both qualify as specialty occupations, and the key is specificity in the job description listing the technical skills required and the degree fields that prepare someone for the work.
How important is production experience versus research experience for AI engineer visa sponsorship?
Production experience is the differentiator for AI engineering roles. Employers sponsoring AI engineers are specifically looking for someone who can deploy and maintain AI systems in production, handling model versioning, building evaluation frameworks, and optimizing inference costs. While research experience shows technical depth, the visa petition for an AI engineer role will emphasize production engineering requirements. Highlight systems you have built and shipped, along with experience in tools like Kubernetes, Docker, and model serving frameworks.
Do I need a master's degree or PhD to get sponsored as an AI engineer?
A bachelor's degree in computer science or a related field is sufficient for most AI engineering positions. Unlike AI research roles where a PhD is often expected, AI engineering emphasizes practical systems-building skills over academic credentials. That said, a master's degree qualifies you for the additional 20,000 H-1B lottery slots reserved for advanced degree holders and signals deeper technical knowledge. Many successful AI engineer petitions are filed with bachelor's-level candidates who have strong production ML experience.
Which companies are most actively sponsoring AI engineers?
Companies scaling AI products are the most active sponsors. This includes large tech firms (Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft), AI-first startups (OpenAI, Anthropic, Cohere), and AI infrastructure companies (Databricks, Anyscale, Weights & Biases). Enterprise companies integrating AI into their products across healthcare, finance, and e-commerce are also growing sponsors. Look for employers whose job descriptions specifically mention LLM integration, RAG systems, or production AI deployment, as these roles are distinct enough to produce strong petitions.
What technical skills should I emphasize in an AI engineer visa petition?
Focus on skills that distinguish AI engineering from general software development. LLM integration, vector database management, prompt engineering pipelines, inference optimization, and retrieval-augmented generation architecture are the most relevant. Experience with evaluation frameworks for AI systems, cost optimization for GPU workloads, and monitoring for model quality in production also carries weight. The more specific the technical requirements in the petition, the stronger the specialty occupation argument.
What is the prevailing wage requirement for sponsored AI Engineer jobs?
When a U.S. employer sponsors a foreign worker for a work visa, they are legally required to pay at least the "prevailing wage", the average wage paid to workers in the same occupation, in the same geographic area, with similar experience. This is set by the Department of Labor to prevent employers from hiring foreign workers at below-market rates. The prevailing wage varies significantly by role, location, and experience level. For example, a ai engineer in California will have a different prevailing wage than the same role in a smaller state. You can look up current prevailing wage rates for any occupation and location using the OFLC Wage Search Page.
How to find AI Engineer jobs with visa sponsorship?
To find AI Engineer jobs with visa sponsorship, use Migrate Mate, which specializes in connecting international tech talent with sponsoring employers. Focus on tech companies, startups, and research institutions that commonly sponsor H-1B, O-1 visa, or TN visas for AI roles. These employers actively seek machine learning engineers, data scientists, and AI researchers with specialized skills in neural networks, computer vision, and natural language processing.