AI Infrastructure Skills in Demand

AI infrastructure teams build the compute, networking and platforms that large models train and run on. The work sits between systems engineering and machine learning, so postings mix low-level performance skills with cloud operations.

We analyzed 148 U.S. job descriptions from 60 employers for AI Infrastructure roles. The most requested skills were Python (47%), Roadmapping (30%) and Kubernetes (29%).

904open U.S. roles tracked
5 yearstypical experience asked for
$224,000median advertised pay, from 219 roles that state it

Languages

  • Python47%
  • C++25%
  • Java15%
  • SQL8%
  • Go8%
  • Rust6%

Product & design

  • Roadmapping30%
  • Agile10%

Cloud & infrastructure

  • Kubernetes29%
  • Distributed systems24%
  • AWS22%
  • Linux21%
  • CI/CD18%
  • Docker13%
  • Azure11%
  • Google Cloud10%
  • Terraform9%
  • Networking7%

AI & machine learning

  • LLMs26%
  • Machine learning22%
  • Generative AI14%
  • PyTorch10%

Operations

  • Root cause analysis8%

Security

  • Incident response7%

Data

  • Data modeling7%

Updated November 7, 2026, using job descriptions collected since September 25, 2026. Shares show how many of the sampled descriptions mention a skill, so a low share can still be a firm requirement in the roles that list it. We sample a limited number of descriptions per employer so that no single company dominates, and we only report figures backed by several employers. Advertised pay comes from a different group of roles than H1B filings, so the two are not directly comparable.

All job families