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AI skills glossary · Orchestration & agents

MCP (Model Context Protocol)

An open protocol for connecting AI applications to tools and data sources through a standard interface, instead of a custom integration for each pairing.

Hiring data as of November 14, 2026, refreshed daily. All terms in the AI skills glossary

companies naming it
13 of 47companies naming it
open roles naming it
31open roles naming it
of those based in NYC
8of those based in NYC
median posted base (n=8)
$228kmedian posted base (n=8)

What MCP means

The Model Context Protocol standardizes how a model-driven application discovers and calls external capabilities. A service exposes its functions once, as an MCP server; any compatible client — a coding agent, a chat application, an internal assistant — can then use them. Anthropic introduced it in late 2024 and other model providers and tool vendors have since adopted it.

MCP in New York job posts

13 of the 47 New York AI companies we track name MCP in at least one open role today, across 31 postings. 8 of those are based in New York; the rest are remote or in the companies’ other offices.

This is engineering vocabulary: 77% of the postings that name it are Engineering roles.

How to read it

A young term with unusually broad pickup. It appears in two kinds of postings: engineers building agent platforms who need to expose tools, and companies that want their own product reachable from customers’ AI assistants. The second group means product and partnerships roles name it too.

What these roles pay

$185k25th percentile
$228kMedian
$239k75th percentile

Midpoints of 8 distinct salary ranges posted on New York roles that name MCP. Base salary only; on-target earnings are excluded, and a range repeated across one company’s postings counts once. For comparison, the median across all New York engineering postings is $215k. A term’s pay reflects the roles that name it as much as the skill itself — see the role mix below before reading a premium into it. Full bands by function and seniority are in the NYC salary calculator.

Companies naming MCP, daily

Count of companies with at least one open role naming the term. We read between 46 and 48 companies a day over this period, so a move of one or two is noise.

0102013Aug 17Nov 14Aug 17: 13 companiesAug 18: 13 companiesAug 19: 13 companiesAug 20: 13 companiesAug 21: 14 companiesAug 22: 14 companiesAug 23: 14 companiesAug 24: 14 companiesAug 25: 14 companiesAug 26: 14 companiesAug 27: 14 companiesAug 28: 14 companiesAug 29: 14 companiesAug 30: 14 companiesAug 31: 14 companiesSep 1: 14 companiesSep 2: 15 companiesSep 3: 15 companiesSep 4: 15 companiesSep 5: 15 companiesSep 6: 15 companiesSep 7: 14 companiesSep 8: 13 companiesSep 9: 14 companiesSep 10: 14 companiesSep 11: 14 companiesSep 12: 14 companiesSep 13: 14 companiesSep 14: 14 companiesSep 15: 14 companiesSep 16: 13 companiesSep 17: 13 companiesSep 18: 13 companiesSep 19: 13 companiesSep 20: 13 companiesSep 21: 13 companiesSep 22: 13 companiesSep 23: 13 companiesSep 24: 13 companiesSep 25: 13 companiesSep 26: 13 companiesSep 27: 13 companiesSep 28: 12 companiesSep 29: 12 companiesSep 30: 11 companiesOct 1: 12 companiesOct 2: 12 companiesOct 3: 12 companiesOct 4: 12 companiesOct 5: 13 companiesOct 6: 12 companiesOct 7: 12 companiesOct 8: 12 companiesOct 9: 12 companiesOct 10: 12 companiesOct 11: 12 companiesOct 12: 12 companiesOct 13: 11 companiesOct 14: 11 companiesOct 15: 11 companiesOct 16: 11 companiesOct 17: 11 companiesOct 18: 11 companiesOct 19: 11 companiesOct 20: 11 companiesOct 21: 11 companiesOct 22: 11 companiesOct 23: 11 companiesOct 24: 11 companiesOct 25: 11 companiesOct 26: 11 companiesOct 27: 11 companiesOct 28: 11 companiesOct 29: 12 companiesOct 30: 12 companiesOct 31: 12 companiesNov 1: 12 companiesNov 2: 12 companiesNov 3: 12 companiesNov 4: 13 companiesNov 5: 13 companiesNov 6: 12 companiesNov 7: 12 companiesNov 8: 12 companiesNov 9: 12 companiesNov 10: 12 companiesNov 11: 12 companiesNov 12: 13 companiesNov 13: 13 companiesNov 14: 13 companies
View as table
Datecompanies
2026-08-1713
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2026-08-2013
2026-08-2114
2026-08-2214
2026-08-2314
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2026-08-2714
2026-08-2814
2026-08-2914
2026-08-3014
2026-08-3114
2026-09-0114
2026-09-0215
2026-09-0315
2026-09-0415
2026-09-0515
2026-09-0615
2026-09-0714
2026-09-0813
2026-09-0914
2026-09-1014
2026-09-1114
2026-09-1214
2026-09-1314
2026-09-1414
2026-09-1514
2026-09-1613
2026-09-1713
2026-09-1813
2026-09-1913
2026-09-2013
2026-09-2113
2026-09-2213
2026-09-2313
2026-09-2413
2026-09-2513
2026-09-2613
2026-09-2713
2026-09-2812
2026-09-2912
2026-09-3011
2026-10-0112
2026-10-0212
2026-10-0312
2026-10-0412
2026-10-0513
2026-10-0612
2026-10-0712
2026-10-0812
2026-10-0912
2026-10-1012
2026-10-1112
2026-10-1212
2026-10-1311
2026-10-1411
2026-10-1511
2026-10-1611
2026-10-1711
2026-10-1811
2026-10-1911
2026-10-2011
2026-10-2111
2026-10-2211
2026-10-2311
2026-10-2411
2026-10-2511
2026-10-2611
2026-10-2711
2026-10-2811
2026-10-2912
2026-10-3012
2026-10-3112
2026-11-0112
2026-11-0212
2026-11-0312
2026-11-0413
2026-11-0513
2026-11-0612
2026-11-0712
2026-11-0812
2026-11-0912
2026-11-1012
2026-11-1112
2026-11-1213
2026-11-1313
2026-11-1413

Who names it

Open roles naming MCP, by company.

Also: SmarterDx.

Which roles

The same postings, by function and by seniority.

  • Engineering24
  • GTM4
  • Product2
  • Other1
  • Mid13
  • Senior9
  • Staff/Principal6
  • Manager2
  • Director1

Named alongside MCP

Terms that appear in the same postings far more often than chance would put them there. The number is how many of the 13 companies pair the two.

Open roles naming MCP

A sample from today’s data, New York roles first and one per company before any repeats. Links go to the employer’s own posting. For the full market, see AI jobs in NYC.

How this is counted

Every day we read the open roles on the public job boards of the New York AI companies in our coverage — the NYC AI 100 and the AI in NYC Show roster. This term is matched against each role’s description after removing the text a company repeats across its postings, so an “About us” paragraph cannot tag every role the company has open. A vendor’s own postings never count toward its own name.

The figure means named in a job posting. It does not mean used in production, and a “nice to have” counts the same as a requirement. Companies are the headline number because posting counts are dominated by whichever few employers are hiring hardest this month.

Full method, including the pay rules, is on the glossary index; the underlying series is the NYC AI Hiring Index.

MCP: common questions

What does MCP mean in an AI job posting?

An open protocol for connecting AI applications to tools and data sources through a standard interface, instead of a custom integration for each pairing. A young term with unusually broad pickup. It appears in two kinds of postings: engineers building agent platforms who need to expose tools, and companies that want their own product reachable from customers’ AI assistants. The second group means product and partnerships roles name it too.

How many New York AI companies are hiring for MCP?

As of November 14, 2026, 13 of the 47 New York AI companies we track name MCP in the description of at least one open role, across 31 postings (8 based in New York). The count refreshes daily from the companies’ own job boards.

What do roles that ask for MCP pay in New York?

Across 8 distinct posted salary ranges on New York roles naming MCP, the median midpoint is $228k base, with the middle half between $185k and $239k. The same figure for all New York engineering postings is $215k. These are employer-posted ranges required by New York’s pay transparency law, base salary only.

Which skills are asked for alongside MCP?

In the same postings, the terms most distinctively paired with MCP are Tool use, Guardrails, Anthropic, Evals, AI agents. We rank pairings by how much more often they appear together than apart, so near-universal terms such as Python do not crowd out the informative ones.

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