Remote AI jobs: the people building AI are less remote than the people using it
"Remote" is the first filter most candidates tick on an AI job board. It is also the filter that quietly changes which AI jobs you see. We counted remote flags across every live posting on Level, an AI-rated job board, crossed with how central AI is to the work. Numbers as of 23 September 2026.
The headline number
Level tracks 46,913 live postings pulled from company applicant tracking systems. 18,037 of them carry a remote flag: 38.4%.
That average hides the interesting part.
Remote share by AI level
Every posting is rated from Level 1 to Level 4 on how central AI is to the job, scored from the posting text alone (how the levels work).
| Level | Meaning | Live jobs | Remote | Remote share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Build AI systems | 3,182 | 1,060 | 33.3% |
| 3 | Work with AI | 6,023 | 2,554 | 42.4% |
| 2 | Use AI as a tool | 2,807 | 1,309 | 46.6% |
| 1 | Work around AI | 30,727 | 8,940 | 29.1% |
These counts exclude one aggregator, explained below. The pattern holds with or without it.
Remote peaks in the middle of the scale. Roles that use AI as a tool, or work alongside AI systems, are remote almost half the time. Roles that build AI systems are remote a third of the time, barely more than roles where AI plays no part.
Why builders are less remote
A few plausible reasons, none of which the data proves on its own:
- Hardware and data access. Training and evaluating models often means on-site clusters, labs, vehicles or restricted datasets. The Level 4 list is full of robotics, autonomous driving and model labs.
- Early-stage teams. Many companies hiring AI builders are small and still pick a hub city on purpose.
- Middle-of-the-scale roles travel well. Product, operations, marketing and support roles that adopt AI tools were already remote-friendly before AI entered the job description.
The aggregator caveat
One source, Jobgether, republishes 4,174 postings and flags every single one of them as remote. Left in, it lifts the Level 4 remote share from 33.3% to 36.1% and Level 1 from 29.1% to 36.1%. It does not change the ranking, but it is a good reminder that a remote flag is only as honest as whoever set it. We report the numbers without it.
Checking it yourself
The counts come from Level's public read-only API. No key is required.
curl "https://jobsbylevel.com/api/v1/jobs?ai_level_min=4&ai_level_max=4&remote=1&per_page=1"
The total field is the count. Swap the level, drop remote=1, or add company= to isolate a source. The MCP server answers the same question in one call with its market_stats tool:
claude mcp add --transport http level-jobs https://jobsbylevel.com/mcp
What to do with this
- If you want to build AI and need remote, expect a smaller pool: roughly one Level 4 role in three. Widen to Level 3 before widening your location.
- If you are hiring AI builders remotely, you are competing for a scarcer kind of posting, which is a selling point worth stating plainly.
- Re-run before quoting. Postings refresh every six hours and a posting whose text changes is scored again.
Method: jobsbylevel.com/method. Level is a free, AI-rated job board for people who want to know what the job really is.
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