The clearest lesson in this industry's short history is what happened to Scale AI's contractors.
Key takeaways
- Weeks after Meta invested $14.3 billion in Scale AI and hired founder Alexandr Wang, Scale cut 200 full-time employees, about 14% of staff, and ended its relationship with 500 contractors..
- 84 live listings in this category publish a rate, at a median top-of-range of $120 an hour and a ceiling of $220.
- The work is remote contract work, asynchronous, with no set hours and no guaranteed volume.
- Applications screen on a short skills assessment rather than a resume or interview.
What was reported
The finding
Weeks after Meta invested $14.3 billion in Scale AI and hired founder Alexandr Wang, Scale cut 200 full-time employees, about 14% of staff, and ended its relationship with 500 contractors. Interim CEO Jason Droege told staff the company had scaled its generative AI capacity too quickly. Rival labs including OpenAI and Google reportedly pulled back work over data-confidentiality concerns after Meta took its stake.
When Meta took its stake, rival labs did not want their training data flowing through a company part-owned by a competitor. Business moved. Scale cut 200 staff and 500 contractors, and it was the contractors who had no notice period and no severance conversation.
What the listings pay
The work itself did not vanish. It went to competitors, and the numbers since have been remarkable: Surge AI passed $1 billion in revenue bootstrapped, Mercor reached roughly $2 billion annualised, and micro1 hit a $500 million gross run rate. Across 84 live listings on our board that publish a rate, the median top-of-range is $120 an hour, reaching $220.
| # | Role | Advertised rate | Platform |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Structural Biologist (Protein Design, AI Evaluation) | $150 to $220 an hour | Mercor |
| 2 | Multilingual Primary Care Physician (MD): Clinical Documentation & AI Evaluation | $170 to $190 an hour | Mercor |
| 3 | Multilingual Inpatient Hospitalist (MD): Clinical Documentation & AI Evaluation | $170 to $170 an hour | Mercor |
| 4 | MS Excel / Google Sheets Evaluator | $80 to $150 an hour | Mercor |
| 5 | BI dashboards / performance reporting Evaluator | $80 to $120 an hour | Dorado |
| 6 | Visual Annotation Expert | $45 to $120 an hour | Mercor |
| 7 | Finance Domain Expert, AI Training & Evaluation | $60 to $100 an hour | Mercor |
| 8 | CAD Engineer, ScreenSpot Plus (Screenshot Capture & UI Annotation) | $70 to $90 an hour | Mercor |
| 9 | Machine Learning Engineer, Model Evaluation & Experimentation | $60 to $90 an hour | Mercor |
| 10 | Video Annotation Specialist | $50 to $90 an hour | micro1 |
Source: 84 live listings on this board that publish a rate, read directly from each posting on 2026-09-06. Listings without a published rate are excluded rather than estimated.
How this compares across the board
A rate only means something next to the alternatives. This is every category we track with at least five listings publishing a rate, ranked by median top-of-range, so you can see where this work sits rather than taking a single number on trust.
| Category | Listings | Median low | Median top | Highest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Legal | 95 | $100 | $140 | $400 |
| Medical | 68 | $77 | $120 | $400 |
| Consulting | 45 | $80 | $120 | $280 |
| Finance | 94 | $80 | $110 | $280 |
| Engineering | 114 | $70 | $100 | $300 |
| Research/PhD | 132 | $70 | $90 | $280 |
| Writing | 36 | $40 | $80 | $280 |
| Bilingual | 78 | $44 | $52 | $120 |
| Annotation | 25 | $12 | $24 | $120 |
Same source and date as above. Categories are matched on listing title, so a role can appear in more than one.
What it means for you
The practical takeaway is not to avoid this work. It is to never depend on one platform for it. Contractor relationships here can end because of a corporate deal you were never told about, and the only protection is being registered on several platforms before you need to be. Browse RLHF and evaluation roles to see who is hiring now.
Who should apply
Two checks before you spend time on an application. Confirm the role accepts applicants from your country with the eligibility checker, since a meaningful share of listings carry location requirements. Then run the advertised rate through the take-home calculator, because this is contract work and the headline figure is before self-employment tax.
Applications complete on the hiring platform and usually take a few minutes, with a short skills assessment in place of an interview. Fill in every credential, language and professional background field on your profile. Those are what route you to the better paid listings, and most applicants leave them blank.
Frequently asked questions
Why did Scale AI cut contractors?
Reporting attributes it to scaling generative AI capacity too quickly, alongside rival labs pulling work after Meta's $14.3 billion stake raised data-confidentiality concerns.
Did AI training work shrink overall?
No. Competitors grew sharply through the same period. Surge AI passed $1 billion in revenue, Mercor reached roughly $2 billion annualised, and micro1 hit a $500 million gross run rate.
What does this kind of work pay now?
Across 84 live listings publishing a rate, the median top-of-range is $120 an hour, reaching $220.
How do I protect myself as a contractor?
Register with several platforms rather than one. Contractor engagements can end because of corporate events you have no visibility into, and having other options already in place is the only real protection.
Do contractors get notice or severance?
Generally no. This is contract work, so engagements can end at short notice. That is the trade-off for the flexibility and the rates.
Sources
See every live role
The full board updates several times a week, with the advertised rate on each listing and closed roles removed.