The hottest job on Wall Street right now isn't a trader or dealmaker. It belongs to the human minds who specialize in building the digital ones.
Bank chiefs have been touting how adopting artificial intelligence at scale will help employees work smarter and cut costs, and they're putting serious money behind those AI ambitions. Goldman Sachs' CEO David Solomon said in October that he wished the firm's $6 billion annual tech budget was even higher, while Bank of America dedicated $4 billion this year to "new technology initiatives," according to the company.
A chunk of that investment is directed at building out battalions of tech professionals to realize those strategies. However, the demand for that talent is driving salaries for technologists who specialize in AI — from rank-and-file engineers to executive and C-suite tech strategists — to soar at banks, according to insiders.
"There's certainly not enough people" to keep pace with hiring demand, said recruiter Ryan Bulkoski, the global head of the AI, data, and analytics practice at the search firm Heidrick & Struggles.
Recruiters and executives across financial services companies told Business Insider the result is a full-blown talent war pitting Wall Street banks against hedge funds, private asset managers, and Silicon Valley startups.
The senior-level or C-suite AI leader who can steer corporate strategy "is the hottest job in the market" right now, forcing financial services firms to cough up "stretch offers," Chris Connors, a principal at the compensation consultancy Johnson Associates, told Business Insider.
"If you are a high-caliber talent, you are more desirable than virtually every other role in the market," Connors added, noting that some firms have extended special, non-standard awards to lure top-tier talent or prevent them from leaving. Competition across the industry is fierce, as hedge funds and other asset managers have even issued incremental equity or long-term awards, Connors said — they often range from $500,000 to $1 million, typically vesting across three to four years. Some firms have offered "significant upfront sign-on grants," often in excess of $200,000, delivered off the bat as cash or equity, he said.
For banks, especially, it has created a conundrum — how to extend big-ticket offers while adhering to their often rigid, standardized compensation bands. Hiring managers are forking over "some uncomfortable hiring packages" which are vaulting recipients into "a completely different stratosphere," Bulkoski explained, noting that top compensation packages for senior-level AI leaders are reaching the high seven- and even eight-figure range.
"Nobody's leaving for less than 30%" pay increases if they're coming from companies where they're already "heads-down and doing well," he said. "No one's going to move for the historical 10, 15, or even 20% bump in compensation."
Making money moves
AI hiring in the financial services industry grew in 2025 to 10 times its level at the start of January 2022, according to an analysis by workforce data provider Revelio Labs. To assemble the data, Revelio examined finance job postings for roles like "AI engineer," "machine learning engineer," and "computer vision engineer," among others.
Six of the largest US banks — including JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley — have collectively posted more than 2,000 AI roles in the past 12 months, Revelio's data showed.
That surging demand for AI talent is driving paychecks higher.
The average salary for AI professionals in finance, excluding C-suite roles, had risen to about $180,000 from $142,000 in 2020. That increase of more than 25% puts them on par with what conventional tech firms tend to pay for these roles, Revelio said.
JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley declined to comment, while others did not respond to requests for comment.
"What we have seen with banks over the past few years is they've had to really reframe and reimagine those comp ranges, especially for a lot of this type of talent," Ben Hodzic, head of North America at the recruiting firm Selby Jennings, told Business Insider. That's especially true as they're coming up against multistrategy hedge funds and high-frequency systematic trading firms that are "paying whatever they need to pay to get people," he said.
Seat at the table
But money alone isn't enough, insiders said. These technologists also want something else: power.
Insiders said the AI race has elevated the voices of technology chiefs at banks and asset managers, giving them a perch at powerful tables that steer firms' overall strategy. Bulkoski said that, for prospective AI chiefs, wielding greater levels of influence in the boardroom alongside other C-suite leaders is an appealing prospect unto itself. "It could trump another number on the sheet," he said.
The nature of the work is attracting a broad swathe of professionals eager to exploit the breach. "Go on LinkedIn and look at the number of people who just changed their title from data scientist to AI scientist," Bulkoski said. "It's kind of unbelievable."
Candidates for senior-level roles are skewing younger, he continued. Some AI-savvy talent in their early- to mid-20s are pulling high-six to seven-figure offers, he said. To suss out who is a fit and who isn't, Bulkoski said his team assesses "whether they have a real track record" of constructing original AI or machine learning products at scale, and if they can channel that knowledge into creating commercial or operational value.
"Most are in the early phases of developing executive maturity," he said, "but the best of them can already influence senior leaders by grounding every conversation in architecture, data, and measurable impact."
The ladder up
With access to the board and stepped-up influence and responsibility, some Wall Street insiders are betting they can offer something Big Tech companies generally can't: a steadier, more clearly defined climb up the professional ranks.
With tech firms consolidating and fears of an AI bubble mounting, recruiters say some technologists are increasingly drawn to the stability and hierarchy that the financial services industry is known for.
"There's been a lot less volatility with jobs in the finance industry compared to the tech industry," said Selby Jennings' Hodzic, adding that finance offers a more well-worn, clearly defined pathway. He said Wall Street had been insulated from the kind of mass layoffs that have roiled Big Tech. Amazon, for instance, cut about 14,000 corporate jobs in 2025.
Recruiters say the flames fanning the talent war aren't dissipating anytime soon, and that the next phase of the hiring race is already underway.
"In 2025, it's almost like Gen AI is in the past," Bulkoski said. "We're actually now working on searches that have 'agentic AI' in the title."
