Machine learning is one of the hottest topics in tech at the moment. Companies are hungry to hire professionals with machine-learning knowledge, even if it costs them quite a bit more than a "standard" technologist salary. The just-released IEEE-USA Salary & Benefits Salary suggests that engineers with machine-learning knowledge are making an average of $185,000 per year. That places them second among the survey's top-paid engineering jobs; only engineers who specialized in smartphones and wearables made more ($215,771). On the other end of the scale, engineers specializing in robotics and automation only pulled down an average of $130,000.