Thinking Machines Lab files the highest salary ceiling of any AI company tracked here: a median top of range of $475,000. Its median filed base is $194,834, across 33 certified labor condition applications decided between February 5, 2025 and June 30, 2026, as of the FY2026 Q3 disclosure file. The distance between those two numbers is the largest in the database.
Key takeaways
- 33 certified H-1B filings, median filed base $194,834, median top of filed range $475,000 (Visionary Talks analysis of DOL LCA disclosure data, FY2026 Q3).
- That $280,166 gap between filed floor and filed ceiling is the widest of any company here, and it exists because Thinking Machines anchors 72.7% of filings at the legal prevailing wage.
- The middle half of its filed ceilings runs $415,000 to $500,000, above OpenAI's median ceiling of $310,000.
- 30 of 33 filings carry one job title, Member of Technical Staff, spanning $96,678 to $550,000. The remaining three carry no job title at all.
- Every single filing is a California worksite. No other company in the database is 100% concentrated in one state.
This article is based on primary sources: the US Department of Labor Office of Foreign Labor Certification LCA disclosure files for FY2025 Q1 through Q4 and FY2026 Q3, which we processed in full. Every salary figure below is computed from those workbooks. Full source list at the bottom.
One Job Title, One State, A $453,322 Spread
Thinking Machines Lab's entire US visa programme consists of 33 filings. Thirty of them say Member of Technical Staff. Three say nothing at all: the job title field is blank.
Inside that single title, filed base salaries run from $96,678 to $550,000, a spread of $453,322. All 33 worksites are in California.
This is what a small, secretive lab looks like on federal paperwork. There is no ladder, no functional breakdown, no commercial layer. Compare Mistral AI, which files 62 applications across ten distinct job titles including an HR generalist, or Databricks, whose 809 filings resolve into a legible seniority ladder.
Thinking Machines discloses the legal minimum and nothing more. Which is entirely permitted, and which is itself the finding.
Roles And What Was Filed
| Job title | Filings | Median base | Range within title |
|---|---|---|---|
| Member of Technical Staff | 30 | $194,834 | $96,678 to $550,000 |
| (no job title given) | 3 | not reported separately |
We are not publishing a median for the three untitled filings. Three data points with no role attached would be a number without a meaning.
The Ceiling Is The Real Story
Thinking Machines files a salary band on 78.8% of its applications and sets the bottom of that band at the government's prevailing wage on 72.7% of all filings. So its $194,834 median filed base is mostly the federal floor for a software occupation in a California county, not an offer.
The top of those bands is where the company's own judgement appears, and it is striking:
| Measure | Thinking Machines | OpenAI | Anthropic | Pooled median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Median filed base | $194,834 | $270,000 | $209,082 | $200,000 |
| Median top of filed range | $475,000 | $310,000 | $340,000 | not applicable |
On the column most people read, Thinking Machines is ninth of eleven. On the column that reflects what the employer actually chose, it is first, by $135,000 over Anthropic and $165,000 over OpenAI.
The honest summary is that Thinking Machines files unusually wide bands with unusually high ceilings, which is what a lab does when it is hiring a handful of very senior people and does not want to publish the number. Whether individual offers land near $475,000 or near $194,834, these filings cannot say. They do establish that the company was willing to commit to the higher figure in writing, to a federal agency, 26 times.
Why There Is No Year-Over-Year Number Here
The raw data appears to show a collapse. Thinking Machines' median filed base was $450,000 across 9 filings in FY2025 and $194,834 across 24 filings in FY2026.
That is not a pay cut, and we are not publishing it as a trend. In FY2025 the company filed exact high salaries. In FY2026 it switched to prevailing-wage-anchored bands, which drags the filed base down mechanically while the filed ceiling stays at $475,000. It is the same paperwork change that makes Anthropic appear to have cut pay 36.8%.
Our pipeline suppresses year-over-year comparisons where a company's band share moves sharply or where either year has fewer than ten filings. Thinking Machines fails both tests, so no change figure is reported for it.
Anyone who quotes a Thinking Machines pay cut from this dataset has not looked at the FY2025 column.
What 33 Filings Tell You
Thinking Machines Lab is the smallest sponsor in the AI Salary Database after Perplexity, and its filings are concentrated in a way no other company's are: one title, one state, one broad band.
It also files under three spellings of its own name: Thinking Machines Lab Inc. on 29 filings, Thinking Machines Lab on 3, and THINKING MACHINES LAB, INC. on 1. Any analysis matching on an exact employer string will miss up to 12% of the company.
For a job seeker the practical read is this. The base number circulating for this company is a legal floor. The number the company itself wrote down has a median of $475,000 and a 75th percentile of $500,000. Those are the highest filed commitments in this entire dataset, from a company that has sponsored 33 people.
FAQ
What is the average salary at Thinking Machines Lab?
The median filed base is $194,834 across 33 certified filings decided between February 2025 and June 2026. Because 72.7% of those filings sit at the legal prevailing wage, that figure is a floor. The median top of the company's filed ranges is $475,000, with the middle half between $415,000 and $500,000.
Is $475,000 what Thinking Machines actually pays?
It is the midpoint of what the company filed as the top of its salary ranges. An offer can land anywhere inside a filed band. What the filings establish is that Thinking Machines committed to a $475,000 median ceiling in writing to a federal agency, which is more than most companies here disclose.
Did Thinking Machines cut salaries in 2026?
No. Its median filed base fell because it changed how it fills in the form, moving from exact salaries in FY2025 to prevailing-wage-anchored bands in FY2026. Its filed ceiling did not fall. We suppress the year-over-year figure for this reason.
Is this total compensation?
No. Base wage only. Equity in an early-stage private lab is not in this data and is likely the larger part of any senior offer.
Sources
1. LCA Disclosure Data, FY2026 Q3, US Department of Labor OFLC: dol.gov performance data. Decisions from October 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026.
2. LCA Disclosure Data, FY2025 Q1 to Q4, US Department of Labor OFLC: dol.gov performance data. Decisions from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025.
3. LCA Record Layout, FY2026 Q3, US Department of Labor OFLC: dol.gov performance data. Defines WAGE_RATE_OF_PAY_FROM, WAGE_RATE_OF_PAY_TO and PREVAILING_WAGE, the fields that separate the filed floor from the filed ceiling above.