Lesson 1293 of 1455
How Teens Make $30-100/hr Training AI on Scale and Mercor
RLHF needs experts on tap. A 16-year-old with chess or coding skills can earn real money — here's the truth about the gigs.
Builders · Careers & Pathways · ~5 min read
The big idea
OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google pay people to write good answers, rank model outputs, and judge AI mistakes — this is RLHF (reinforcement learning from human feedback). Expert annotators on platforms like Scale AI's Outlier, Mercor, Surge, and Invisible earn $25-100/hr. Pay scales with the rarity of your skill: a teen who codes well, plays chess at a high level, knows AP Calc cold, or speaks a less-common language can qualify. The work is real, the pay is real, and the age requirement is usually 18 — but Mercor lets verified minors apply with a parent.
Some examples
- Mercor's CEO publicly said in 2024 they hire teens with verified skill (e.g., USACO Gold, AMC 12 perfect, working app on App Store) at $30-80/hr.
- Scale AI's Outlier platform lists 'Coding Expert,' 'Math Expert,' 'Creative Writing Expert' tiers — pay rises with assessment scores.
- Surge HQ in 2024 paid up to $50/hr for medical-school-level question writing and up to $100/hr for graduate-level math.
- The downside: gig is per-project; income lumpy; some platforms ghost you between projects. Treat it as side income, not salary.
Try it!
Make a one-page 'skill resume' tonight: list one to three verifiable skills with proof links (Codeforces handle, App Store URL, AMC score). That's the application packet for every platform.
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