Careers
Career Outlook
As the role of computers and technology grows ever larger in our daily lives, business and industry are increasingly seeking experts in the complicated nexus between humans and machines.
Computational linguistics is an academic discipline that directly addresses this need, combining elements of linguistics, software engineering, artificial intelligence and electrical engineering. Professionals trained in this field help machines process human language and help linguists understand language through computer models.
Graduates of the Master of Science in Computational Linguistics program can apply their skills in the development of applications related to translation, voice recognition, automated text analysis, search engines and other pioneering technologies.
Strong Earning Potential
Those who earn a master's degree in computational linguistics are equipped to land well-compensated positions across a variety of fields and industries. Salary level varies, depending on the industry and particular role. PayScale indicates that in 2025, the median salary for computational linguists was about $101,000 a year, with the top-end annual salary at about $126,000.
Alumni Success
Alumni Job Titles
Below is a list of just some of the job titles that a UW Master of Science in Computational Linguistics prepares you for:
- Analytical Linguist
- Applied Scientist
- Artificial Intelligence Engineer
- Big Data Software Engineer
- Chief Product Officer
- Computational Linguist
- Crowdsourcing Developer
- Chief Technology Officer
- Data Operations
- Data Scientist
- Language Data Specialist
- Language Engineer
- Linguist
- Linguist Engineer
- Linguist Ontology and Dialogue Designer
- Machine Learning Engineer
- NLP Engineer/Scientist
- Research Engineer
- Researcher/Research Scientist
- Software Development Engineer
Alumni Employers
We make every effort to connect our current and former students with potential employment opportunities. Our graduates have obtained full-time employment at many leading companies.
- Apple
- Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence
- Lighthouse (formerly H5)
- Bosch
- Samsung
- VoiceBox Technologies
Read Alumni Stories
Read interviews with some of our accomplished alumni to see how their master's in computational linguistics gave them the tools and skills they needed to advance their careers.
More Information
Interested in finding out more about careers in computational linguistics? See current and past job postings to get a sense of the diversity of employment opportunities.