Training as a Career: How to make a full-time income as an AI Tutor
Also: How to list training on your resume, NDAs, etc.
If you can’t make it through this article you probably aren’t fit to be a writing tasker lol
I believe in 5 years there will be more AI trainers than software engineers, and if the community plays its cards right, the salary for an AI trainer will be even higher than a SWE
BUT STEVEN, AREN’T TRAINERS FREELANCERS? AND ONLY A FEW JOBS PAY $80 AN HOUR — my sweet summer child, read on and you will learn the secrets of this industry.
First, the hours. Of course, anyone who has tasked knows that its humanly impossible for someone to task for 8 hours a day straight. For low skill work like annotation it may be possible, but for generalist writing tasks it’s impossible to do for that long without burning out. However, as someone who knew programmers in the nineties, there’s a lot of similarities between the evolution of software engineering and the evolution of AI training.
Tasking began with MTurk, primarily for low-skill data annotation tasks. Similarly, programming started as relatively low-skill, so much so that it was initially given to secretaries and housewives (cringe I know). Now, it’s moved to more high skill labor, however it is still underpaid and there are a lot of bad practices in the industry (more on that in a future article).
Even right now, it’s possible to make training a career. I have polyglot friends who are doing 3 hours of translation work a day and making over $1k a week, all while living in a low cost of living area and doing things they love (playing sports, reading, learning languages). Which is why I will impart this advice onto all aspiring AI trainers: LEARN AS MUCH AS YOU CAN AND BE DILIGENT (also, join our discord). The two most important things for high-skill tasking is your proficiency in the topic and your conscientiousness. Optimizing both is key to getting more jobs as often tasks have “known questions” that test for your job proficiency while doing the task. I can get more in depth although I have to verify what I can / cannot talk about due to NDA.
Getting multiple tasks is hard, especially since some tasking companies are proposing non-compete clauses (although I am writing an article right now describing why in many cases these are void). However, it is possible via upskilling. I am planning on writing a multi-part guide on this, but the TLDR is that it’s totally possible although the biggest barrier is the inability to retake tests.
On the resume question - speaking of resumes, it’s often forbidden by contract to list the experience on your resume. Despite this it seems like companies like Alignerr are poaching trainers from Outlier, so it may be looking like being public about your training is worth it. In a future article I’ll write about the pros and cons of this.
Anyways, that’s all for today. Feel free to ask questions in the comments.
And as always, join the discord.