DataAnnotationby Surge AI (Surge Labs, Inc.) · dataannotation.tech
DataAnnotation review 2026: pay, how to get in, and is it legit?
Legit, paysTreat it as side income, because projects end without much warning.
DataAnnotation is Surge AI's worker-facing platform: you pass one starter assessment, then pick paid writing, coding and rating tasks from a dashboard whenever you like. The typical top rate on its live listings is $125/hr; the platform says $20–150/hr. It's legit and suits strong English writers and coders.
- Open to India
- None No open role names India or is open worldwide; 96 more don't name a country
- Posted in the last 4 weeks
- No post dates 104 open jobs; their board doesn't date posts
- Newest listing
- No post dates Their board doesn't publish post dates
- Payout record
- Pays on time Paid on request; arrives within a few days
Is DataAnnotation hiring right now?
Yes. Rubric lists 104 open DataAnnotation jobs. For India: no open role names India or is open worldwide; 96 more don't name a country.
DataAnnotation mostly doesn't hire in India, and most DataAnnotation roles name specific countries, so filter the job list by your country.
Newest DataAnnotation jobs
Filter DataAnnotation jobs by country, field or payup to $125/hr
Expert level: most of these want a degree, a licence or years of work in the field.
The job
We’re looking for an experienced Mechanical Design Engineer to help train AI models.
Score 61/100: pay 28.6/40, recency 10/20, payouts 11.3/15, steady work 5/10, who can apply 6/10. How we score
What they ask for
- 2+ years of professional mechanical engineering experience in any specialty: design, product development, manufacturing, thermal, structural, automotive, aerospace, HVAC,…
- Fluency in the tools of your specialty, such as CAD (SolidWorks, Fusion 360, Onshape, Creo, NX, CATIA, or Inventor), FEA/CFD, or MATLAB/Python for engineering analysis.
- Strong fundamentals across mechanics of materials, dynamics, thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluid mechanics, and manufacturing processes.
Apply on DataAnnotation for Mechanical Design Engineer on DataAnnotation (opens in a new tab)
up to $125/hr
Expert level: most of these want a degree, a licence or years of work in the field.
The job
DataAnnotation is looking for an experienced Electronics Engineer to evaluate how frontier AI models handle real electrical and electronics engineering work.
Score 61/100: pay 28.6/40, recency 10/20, payouts 11.3/15, steady work 5/10, who can apply 6/10. How we score
What they ask for
- Fluency in English (native or bilingual level).
- 2+ years of industry experience in circuit or electronics engineering.
- Background in electrical engineering, electronics engineering, or a closely related discipline.
Apply on DataAnnotation for Electronics Engineer on DataAnnotation (opens in a new tab)
up to $125/hr
Expert level: most of these want a degree, a licence or years of work in the field.
The job
Models produce fluent legal analysis that is often subtly wrong: invented citations, misapplied precedent, and jurisdictional confusion. A plausible wrong answer in law has real consequences.
Score 57/100: pay 28.6/40, recency 10/20, payouts 11.3/15, steady work 5/10, who can apply 2/10. How we score
What they ask for
- JD or equivalent, with practice experience or strong academic background.
- Sharp legal research and writing skills across at least one practice area.
- Clear written English: your explanations are the training signal.
Apply on DataAnnotation for Legal Expert on DataAnnotation (opens in a new tab)
up to $150/hr
Expert level: most of these want a degree, a licence or years of work in the field.
The job
Models are surprisingly bad at reasoning about themselves: training dynamics, evaluation design, data pipelines, and deployment trade-offs. Plausible-sounding ML advice is often subtly wrong.
Score 60/100: pay 34.3/40, recency 7.1/20, payouts 11.3/15, steady work 5/10, who can apply 2/10. How we score
What they ask for
- Hands-on experience training, evaluating, or deploying models professionally or in serious personal work.
- Comfort with the modern ML stack; most tasks assume Python and PyTorch or JAX.
- Clear written English: your explanations are the training signal.
Apply on DataAnnotation for Machine Learning Engineer on DataAnnotation (opens in a new tab)
up to $150/hr
Expert level: most of these want a degree, a licence or years of work in the field.
The job
A model will hand you a pipeline and an infrastructure change that apply cleanly and quietly leave a security group open to the world, a state file that will corrupt on the next run, and a rollback path that does not exist. In production those mistakes page someone at 3am. Reasoning about the whole system is the job.
Score 60/100: pay 34.3/40, recency 7.1/20, payouts 11.3/15, steady work 5/10, who can apply 2/10. How we score
What they ask for
- Hands-on experience running CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code, or cloud operations.
- Comfort with a major cloud and tools like Terraform, Kubernetes, or Docker.
- Clear written English: your explanations are the training signal.
Apply on DataAnnotation for DevOps Engineer on DataAnnotation (opens in a new tab)
up to $150/hr
Expert level: most of these want a degree, a licence or years of work in the field.
The job
The newest models can vibe-code a whole feature in minutes. Someone has to check whether that code actually works, and that someone is you.
Score 60/100: pay 34.3/40, recency 7.1/20, payouts 11.3/15, steady work 5/10, who can apply 2/10. How we score
What they ask for
- Professional or serious open-source experience shipping production code.
- Comfort in at least one major stack; most tasks use Python, C++, Rust, Go, or JavaScript.
- Clear written English: your explanations are the training signal.
Apply on DataAnnotation for Software Engineer on DataAnnotation (opens in a new tab)
up to $150/hr
Expert level: most of these want a degree, a licence or years of work in the field.
The job
Models write backend code that passes the happy-path test and falls over on everything else: the race condition under load, the N+1 that melts the database, the API contract that breaks every client the day you change it. Someone has to reason about the system, not just the snippet, and that someone is you.
Score 60/100: pay 34.3/40, recency 7.1/20, payouts 11.3/15, steady work 5/10, who can apply 2/10. How we score
What they ask for
- Professional or serious open-source experience building backend services.
- Comfort with databases, APIs, and concurrency; most tasks assume a language like Python, Go, Java, or Rust.
- Clear written English: your explanations are the training signal.
Apply on DataAnnotation for Backend Engineer on DataAnnotation (opens in a new tab)
up to $150/hr
Expert level: most of these want a degree, a licence or years of work in the field.
The job
The newest models can spin up a full analysis in minutes — load the data, pick a method, produce charts and a confident conclusion. Someone has to check whether the statistics actually hold up, and that someone is you.
Score 60/100: pay 34.3/40, recency 7.1/20, payouts 11.3/15, steady work 5/10, who can apply 2/10. How we score
What they ask for
- Professional or academic experience doing real data analysis — industry, research, or serious independent work.
- Fluency with the standard toolkit; most tasks use Python, SQL, and notebooks.
- Clear written English: your explanations are the training signal.
Apply on DataAnnotation for Data Scientist on DataAnnotation (opens in a new tab)
up to $150/hr
Expert level: most of these want a degree, a licence or years of work in the field.
The job
Models can scaffold a whole app in one shot: front end, API, and database, all of it looking right. Then the state goes stale, the endpoint leaks data, and the migration bricks production.
Score 60/100: pay 34.3/40, recency 7.1/20, payouts 11.3/15, steady work 5/10, who can apply 2/10. How we score
What they ask for
- Professional or serious open-source experience shipping full-stack applications.
- Comfort across the stack; most tasks span a JavaScript front end, an API layer, and a database.
- Clear written English: your explanations are the training signal.
Apply on DataAnnotation for Full Stack Engineer on DataAnnotation (opens in a new tab)
up to $150/hr
Expert level: most of these want a degree, a licence or years of work in the field.
The job
Models ship UI that renders in the demo and breaks everywhere else: state that desyncs on the second render, an accessibility tree no screen reader can follow, a layout that collapses the moment real content arrives.
Score 60/100: pay 34.3/40, recency 7.1/20, payouts 11.3/15, steady work 5/10, who can apply 2/10. How we score
What they ask for
- Professional or serious open-source experience building web UIs.
- Comfort with a modern framework and CSS; most tasks assume React, TypeScript, or similar.
- Clear written English: your explanations are the training signal.
Apply on DataAnnotation for Frontend Engineer on DataAnnotation (opens in a new tab)
up to $125/hr
Expert level: most of these want a degree, a licence or years of work in the field.
The job
Models blur the line between what's established, what's contested, and what's simply made up in the life sciences, and they cite papers that don't exist.
Score 54/100: pay 28.6/40, recency 7.1/20, payouts 11.3/15, steady work 5/10, who can apply 2/10. How we score
What they ask for
- Graduate-level biology background or equivalent research experience.
- Comfort reading primary literature critically.
- Clear written English: your explanations are the training signal.
Apply on DataAnnotation for Biologist on DataAnnotation (opens in a new tab)
up to $125/hr
Expert level: most of these want a degree, a licence or years of work in the field.
The job
Models are great at spotting the textbook SQL injection and blind to the flaw that only shows up in your architecture: the trust boundary drawn in the wrong place, the deserialization no scanner flags, the IAM policy that quietly grants the world. Someone has to threat-model the whole system, and that someone is you.
Score 54/100: pay 28.6/40, recency 7.1/20, payouts 11.3/15, steady work 5/10, who can apply 2/10. How we score
What they ask for
- Professional experience in application or cloud security: code review, threat modeling, or vulnerability research.
- Comfort reading real code and cloud configs for security flaws.
- Clear written English: your explanations are the training signal.
Apply on DataAnnotation for Application Security Engineer on DataAnnotation (opens in a new tab)
up to $125/hr
Expert level: most of these want a degree, a licence or years of work in the field.
The job
Models talk about markets like a textbook and trade like they've never been filled: a strategy that ignores the bid-ask, a hedge that's wrong by a Greek, position sizing with no respect for slippage or where the liquidity actually is. Someone has to know how the trade behaves when real size hits the tape, and that someone is you.
Score 54/100: pay 28.6/40, recency 7.1/20, payouts 11.3/15, steady work 5/10, who can apply 2/10. How we score
What they ask for
- Experience trading or making markets, professionally or in serious personal work.
- Fluency with market microstructure, execution, and risk.
- Clear written English: your explanations are the training signal.
Apply on DataAnnotation for Trader on DataAnnotation (opens in a new tab)
up to $125/hr
Expert level: most of these want a degree, a licence or years of work in the field.
The job
Ask a model a tax question and it answers with authority, then applies a code section that changed last year, misses a phaseout, treats an S corp like a partnership, and forgets that state rules diverge from federal.
Score 54/100: pay 28.6/40, recency 7.1/20, payouts 11.3/15, steady work 5/10, who can apply 2/10. How we score
What they ask for
- Hands-on tax experience: corporate, individual, or provision (ASC 740) work.
- Comfort tracing a position back to the code and current guidance.
- Clear written English: your explanations are the training signal.
Apply on DataAnnotation for Tax Accountant on DataAnnotation (opens in a new tab)
up to $125/hr
Expert level: most of these want a degree, a licence or years of work in the field.
The job
Models reach for an actuarial answer and fumble the long-tail math: a reserve that ignores development, mortality assumptions applied to the wrong cohort, discounting that quietly breaks the present value.
Score 54/100: pay 28.6/40, recency 7.1/20, payouts 11.3/15, steady work 5/10, who can apply 2/10. How we score
What they ask for
- Actuarial experience or exam progress across life, health, P&C, or pensions.
- Fluency with probability, statistics, and actuarial methods.
- Clear written English: your explanations are the training signal.
Apply on DataAnnotation for Actuary on DataAnnotation (opens in a new tab)
up to $125/hr
Expert level: most of these want a degree, a licence or years of work in the field.
The job
Models can build a three-statement model that looks clean and still get the mechanics wrong: a balance sheet that doesn't balance, working capital that flows the wrong way, a circular reference silently zeroed out.
Score 54/100: pay 28.6/40, recency 7.1/20, payouts 11.3/15, steady work 5/10, who can apply 2/10. How we score
What they ask for
- Professional experience in corporate finance, FP&A, or strategic finance.
- Fluency with modeling: three-statement builds, DCF, and the accounting behind them.
- Clear written English: your explanations are the training signal.
Apply on DataAnnotation for Finance Expert on DataAnnotation (opens in a new tab)
up to $125/hr
Expert level: most of these want a degree, a licence or years of work in the field.
The job
Models build an LBO that returns a tidy IRR and skip the parts that make or break a deal: a debt schedule that ignores the covenants, an entry multiple with no exit story, diligence that takes management's projections at face value. Someone has to underwrite it like their own capital is at stake, and that someone is you.
Score 54/100: pay 28.6/40, recency 7.1/20, payouts 11.3/15, steady work 5/10, who can apply 2/10. How we score
What they ask for
- Experience in private equity, growth equity, or transaction diligence.
- Fluency with LBO modeling and the mechanics of leveraged deals.
- Clear written English: your explanations are the training signal.
Apply on DataAnnotation for Private Equity Associate on DataAnnotation (opens in a new tab)
up to $125/hr
Expert level: most of these want a degree, a licence or years of work in the field.
The job
Models can generate a slick-looking screen and completely miss the point: the flow that adds three needless steps, the hierarchy that buries the one action that matters, the contrast that fails the moment someone actually needs to read it. Someone has to tell polish from good design, and that someone is you.
Score 54/100: pay 28.6/40, recency 7.1/20, payouts 11.3/15, steady work 5/10, who can apply 2/10. How we score
What they ask for
- Professional experience in product, UX, or visual design, with a portfolio to back it.
- Sharp eye for usability, hierarchy, typography, and accessibility.
- Clear written English: your explanations are the training signal.
Apply on DataAnnotation for Designer on DataAnnotation (opens in a new tab)
up to $125/hr
Expert level: most of these want a degree, a licence or years of work in the field.
The job
Models answer health questions in a confident, authoritative voice and still get the clinical details wrong: a contraindication they skip, guidance that ignores comorbidities, advice that is textbook-correct and wrong for a real patient. Someone with real clinical training has to close that gap, and that is you.
Score 54/100: pay 28.6/40, recency 7.1/20, payouts 11.3/15, steady work 5/10, who can apply 2/10. How we score
What they ask for
- Clinical or health-professional experience in any specialty.
- Comfort reasoning through diagnosis, treatment, and safety.
- Clear written English: your explanations are the training signal.
Apply on DataAnnotation for Health/Medical Expert on DataAnnotation (opens in a new tab)
up to $125/hr
Expert level: most of these want a degree, a licence or years of work in the field.
The job
Models produce confident accounting answers that fail on the details: misapplied standards, broken reconciliations, and journal entries that don't balance.
Score 54/100: pay 28.6/40, recency 7.1/20, payouts 11.3/15, steady work 5/10, who can apply 2/10. How we score
What they ask for
- CPA, ACCA, or equivalent training, or professional accounting experience.
- Comfort across bookkeeping, financial reporting, or tax.
- Clear written English: your explanations are the training signal.
Apply on DataAnnotation for Accountant on DataAnnotation (opens in a new tab)
Live numbers from Rubric's job list, refreshed Nov 6, 2026. Year-old posts are listed on the jobs page but not counted.
How much does DataAnnotation pay?
Across 104 current DataAnnotation listings that show an hourly rate, the typical top rate is $125/hr (half offer that or more). The middle half top out between $40/hr and $125/hr; the lowest top rate on a listing is $40/hr and the highest is $150/hr.
| Typical top rate | $125/hr |
|---|---|
| Middle half of top rates | $40/hr to $125/hr |
| Lowest top rate | $40/hr |
| Highest top rate | $150/hr |
| Platform says | $20–150/hr |
What could you make a month on DataAnnotation?
At $125/hr, the typical top rate. Change it to the rate on your listing or offer. Paid hours depend on how much work the project has.
Pay by kind of work
| Work | Open roles | Typical top rate |
|---|---|---|
| Coding | 12 | $150/hr |
| Law | 7 | $125/hr |
| Science | 6 | $125/hr |
| Finance | 21 | $125/hr |
| Medicine | 12 | $125/hr |
| Languages | 41 | $40/hr |
Only kinds of work with 3 or more priced listings are shown.
How DataAnnotation scores
Checked
- Payadvertised range
- $20–150/hrLive listings pay up to $150/hr
- Official starting rates are $25–50/hr general, $40–150/hr coding and $40–125/hr STEM/professional; workers report general tasks often settle around $20–30/hr.
- Getting in
- Hard to get in
- 1–2 hours (one-time starter assessment). Fluent English.
- Steady work
- Comes and goes
- Workload can drop to zero for weeks.
- Payout record
- Pays on time
- On request; arrives within a few days payouts via PayPal.
Ratings come from the platform's own terms, worker reports on Reddit and the sources at the end of this page. How we grade.
How do you get accepted on DataAnnotation?
Plan for 1–2 hours (one-time starter assessment). Here's the process, in order:
- Sign up and pick a track (general, multilingual, coding, STEM or professional)
- Take the starter assessment; you only get one attempt
- Wait for an email with the result (many never hear back)
- Verify your identity with Persona
- Pick projects from your dashboard
What you need before you start
- Fluent English
- PayPal account
- Government ID for verification
How and when does DataAnnotation pay you?
DataAnnotation pays on request; arrives within a few days via PayPal. Workers generally report payments arriving on time.
- Schedule
- On request; arrives within a few days
- Method
- PayPal
- Payout record
- Pays on time
Is DataAnnotation legit?
DataAnnotation is a real platform that pays, and it's worth applying to for strong English writers, coders, or people who want to pick their own hours. Treat it as side income, because projects end without much warning. Expect to be screened hard. Read the red flags below before you sign anything.
Red flags (3)
- Red flagAccounts deactivated without explanation, sometimes with unpaid balances reported
- Red flagNo reply after the unpaid starter assessment
- Red flagMay 2025 class action over contractor status and unpaid assessments (allegations)
Good
- No interview and no fixed schedule
- Fast PayPal withdrawals
- Good pay for general writing work
Watch out for
- Silence instead of a rejection if you fail
- Workload can drop to zero for weeks
- Very little support or feedback
Who it suits
- Strong English writers
- Coders
- People who want to pick their own hours
Not for
- Beginners with no degree or specialist experience
- Anyone who needs guaranteed hours every week
- People outside the countries it hires in
- Anyone looking for a salaried job with benefits: this is contract work
For recent worker reports, read r/DataAnnotationTech. Sort by new; people post payout problems there first.
DataAnnotation FAQ
Can you work on DataAnnotation from India?
Mostly no. Historically limited to the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland, with some workers reporting access from other countries. India has not been on the published list.
Is DataAnnotation hiring right now?
Yes. Rubric lists 104 open DataAnnotation jobs. For India: no open role names India or is open worldwide; 96 more don't name a country.
Does DataAnnotation have a referral program?
Not that we know of.
How long does it take to apply to DataAnnotation?
About 1–2 hours (one-time starter assessment).
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Sources
- dataannotation.tech/faq
- secondtalent.com/resources/is-dataannotation-legit
- revenuememo.com/p/who-owns-dataannotation
- glassdoor.ie/Reviews/Employee-Review-DataAnnotation-E8605843-RVW103736120.htm
- lr.us.psf.lt/r/DataAnnotationTech/comments/1agg5is/dataannotation_faq_welcome_thread_part_2_read/kv89acp
Last checked . Spotted something out of date? Tell us.
Where DataAnnotation's top rates sit
104 priced listings open now, by the top of each range.