Four facts about the work

  • You produce human data. Example answers, rankings, scores with written reasons, tricky test prompts, and code with tests.
  • Your field is the qualification. Domain knowledge is what micro1 listings screen for.
  • It is contract work. micro1 engages experts as independent contractors, and work lasts as long as the client has work to do.
  • Rates depend on your field. See micro1 pay rates by field.

Where the work comes from: RLHF in plain words

A language model learns first from huge amounts of text. That makes it fluent, but not necessarily helpful, accurate or safe. To fix that, labs use human feedback. The best known method is RLHF (reinforcement learning from human feedback).

In the InstructGPT research from OpenAI, human labelers did two things. First they wrote demonstrations of the desired behaviour, used to fine-tune the model. Then they ranked several model outputs for the same prompt. Those rankings trained a reward model, which then guided further training.

Hugging Face explains why rankings are used instead of plain scores: different people give inconsistent absolute scores, while comparing outputs side by side produces more reliable data. That is why so many AI trainer tasks ask you to compare two or more responses and explain which is better.

The main types of AI trainer tasks

1. Writing expert answers and prompts

You write a hard question in your field and a model answer, or you write the ideal response to a prompt. Lab work, legal reasoning, clinical judgment or financial analysis all fit here.

2. Grading and comparing responses

A micro1 listing for an Educator/Assessor Writer describes this well: evaluate and compare several AI-generated answers for clarity, tone, helpfulness and how well they follow instructions, give scores using a rubric, and write a detailed rationale for each score. It also asks you to spot answers that sound fluent but are unsupported, and to catch factual errors and internal inconsistencies.

3. Building rubrics and evaluations

Some roles design the test itself. A micro1 AI Evaluation Specialist listing involves creating self-contained tasks with prompts, supporting files and detailed grading rubrics, and defining clear written criteria for what counts as success or failure. You then observe how an AI agent performs and write precise reports.

4. Red teaming

NIST (the US standards institute) defines AI red-teaming as a structured testing effort to find flaws and vulnerabilities in an AI system. In practice, a micro1 LLM Red-Teamer listing asks for adversarial multi-turn conversations, binary (yes or no) rubrics to judge the model's replies, and repeated testing against frontier models, raising the difficulty until the task meets a quality bar. You document where the model fails and why.

5. Coding tasks

Software roles look different. A micro1 Puzzle Solver (Coding) listing describes exploring an unfamiliar codebase or terminal, implementing a solution, writing tests that separate truly correct solutions from ones that only look right, and reviewing AI-generated code for logic errors. A Competitive Coder listing involves creating original programming problems with a reference solution and a thorough test suite.

What the open roles look like

On 26 October 2026 this site held 2,544 open AI training roles from 23 platforms. We sorted them by what their titles say the work is, so the shares are estimates.

Task typeOpen rolesShareMedian listed hourly rateWhere most of them are
Writing, tutoring and grading model answers73425.3%$40Meridial, Welocalize and 10x Team
Coding and software33511.6%$70Meridial, Anyone AI and Mercor
Translation and localization31510.9%$32.50Meridial, Welocalize and Mercor
Speech, transcription and voice31410.8%$19Meridial, TSMG and RWS TrainAI
Search, ads and map rating1595.5%$18Welocalize, RWS TrainAI and micro1
Annotation and labeling1093.8%$14.75HumanSignal, Meridial and RWS TrainAI
Safety and red teaming210.7%$95Mercor, SME Careers and Weekday
Other expert or general roles91331.5%$65SME Careers, Mercor and micro1

"Other expert or general roles" are mostly subject experts whose title names only the field, such as a finance or neuroscience expert. Most of the roles name a work language besides English: 1,303 of 2,544. For the full counts, see the AI Training Jobs Report, October 2026.

What a typical task looks like

Grading tasks usually follow this pattern:

  1. Read the project guidelines and rubric (these can be long, and they change).
  2. Open a task: one prompt and two or more model responses.
  3. Check each response for accuracy, completeness and whether it followed the instructions.
  4. Score each one against the rubric, or pick the better one.
  5. Write a short, specific justification that a reviewer can check.
  6. Submit, then read reviewer feedback and stay calibrated with the team.

The written justification separates good trainers from average ones. "Response B is better" tells a reviewer nothing. "Response A cites the wrong statute and skips the limitation period; B covers both" is the kind of note projects ask for.

Skills you need

  • Real depth in a field. Listings range from physicians and lawyers to engineers, data analysts, linguists and voice actors. Some ask for degrees, licences or recent practice.
  • Precise writing. Clear, short, unambiguous English. Many listings ask for native or fluent English, and the red teaming and evaluation listings put strong weight on this.
  • Following guidelines consistently. Applying the same standard on task 200 as on task 1.
  • Critical reading. Catching answers that are confident but wrong.
  • Working alone. Most work is remote and asynchronous, with deadlines.

Why experts take it on

  • Flexible schedule in many roles. Several micro1 coding and engineering listings say you choose the hours and days you work.
  • Fully remote, with listings open to applicants in many countries.
  • It uses expertise you already have, often alongside another job. One listing says the work can fit around other professional obligations.
  • Specialist fields list high rates. In this site's copy of micro1's list on 26 October 2026, the median listed hourly rate (middle of each range) was $68, and the fields with the highest medians were Law ($128), Finance ($103), Medicine ($98).

What to watch out for

  • Plan around variable hours. micro1's expert agreement page says roles continue as long as the client has work and that client needs can change. If you need a stable monthly income from one source, treat this as extra work.
  • Set money aside for tax. You work as a contractor, and micro1 says you are responsible for your own taxes, social security, insurance and benefits. See micro1 payments and taxes.
  • Look at how the role pays. Several listings pay per task that meets the project specifications, with minimum submission requirements, instead of per hour.
  • Re-read the guidelines when they change. Projects evolve, quality is reviewed, and many tasks repeat the same rubric, so consistency counts.
  • Compare rates across fields. The lowest medians in the same copy were Robotics ($14), Languages ($28), Generalist ($46).

Who it suits

  • Professionals with deep knowledge who enjoy explaining and checking reasoning.
  • People who want extra work on their own schedule.
  • Careful writers and reviewers: editors, teachers, examiners, QA analysts, researchers.
  • Developers who like puzzles, testing and finding edge cases.

How to get started

micro1 asks experts to apply for specific roles. The application can include an AI interview, so read the micro1 AI interview guide first. Then pick a role that matches your background.

Browse all 2900 open AI training roles, or go straight to micro1's full job list (referral link).

Sources

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