Construction & Heavy Equipment Subject Matter Expert- Freelance

Innodata Knowledge Services, Inc.; Metro Manila; On-site; PHP 900,000 - 1,300,000; Full time

Job summary

Innodata Knowledge Services, Inc. is seeking a Construction & Heavy Equipment SME to support an AI video annotation project focused on construction sites, heavy machinery, and equipment operations.

You will review footage, identify activities, define task categories and label definitions, and help onboard annotators. This is a domain-expert role, with training on the annotation platform as needed.

Qualifications

• Minimum 3 years of hands-on experience in construction or heavy equipment operations.
• Strong familiarity with construction-site activities and equipment workflows.
• Ability to recognize machinery and operating states.
• Clear written and verbal English communication.
• Excellent visual observation, analytical judgment, and attention to detail.
• Ability to explain technical activities to non-experts.
• Comfort with reviewing repetitive video footage.
• Proficiency with online video-review and annotation tools.

Responsibilities

• Review construction and heavy-equipment video footage and identify equipment, activities, operator actions, operating states, and worker-equipment interactions.
• Recognize machinery, attachments, tools, materials, and common site workflows.
• Break down complex work sequences into clear activities suitable for annotation.
• Determine where an activity begins and ends for timestamp annotation.
• Help define and refine activity categories, label definitions, and rules.
• Explain construction terminology in clear language for non-industry annotators.
• Provide examples of correct and incorrect classifications and edge cases.
• Review unclear or escalated video cases with QA teams.
• Validate annotation guidelines reflect real-world operations.
• Support onboarding, training, calibration, and alignment sessions.

Skills

Construction-site activities

Heavy-equipment operations

Attention to detail

English communication

Visual observation

Analytical thinking

Task breakdown

Clarifying questions

Tools

Annotation platform

Video-review tools

Job description

Construction & Heavy Equipment SME:

We are looking for a Construction & Heavy Equipment Subject Matter Expert (SME) to support an AI video annotation project involving construction sites, heavy machinery, and equipment operations.

The SME will review video footage and use practical industry knowledge to identify, interpret, and define the construction and heavy-equipment activities shown. The role will support the annotation and quality teams by translating field activities into clear task categories, label definitions, and operational guidance.

This is primarily a domain-expert role, not a production annotation role. The successful candidate may be trained on the annotation platform and project-specific labeling process.

Key Responsibilities

• Review construction and heavy-equipment video footage and identify the equipment, activities, operator actions, operating states, and worker-equipment interactions shown.
• Recognize machinery, attachments, tools, materials, and common construction-site workflows.
• Break down complex work sequences into clear and distinguishable activities suitable for video annotation.
• Determine where an activity begins and ends when temporal or timestamp annotation is required.
• Help define and refine activity categories, label definitions, inclusion and exclusion rules, and task taxonomy.
• Explain construction and equipment terminology in clear language that non-industry annotators can understand.
• Provide examples of correct classifications, incorrect classifications, edge cases, and situations requiring escalation.
• Review unclear, unusual, obstructed, or difficult video cases escalated by the annotation and QA teams.
• Validate that annotation guidelines accurately reflect real-world construction and equipment operations.
• Support project onboarding, annotator training, calibration, and periodic alignment sessions.
• Help resolve disagreements involving domain interpretation and identify questions requiring client clarification.
• Work with Project Management, Operations, and QA teams while following confidentiality and data-security requirements.

Required Qualifications

• Minimum 3 years of relevant hands-on or directly related experience in construction, heavy-equipment operations, mining, quarrying, material handling, equipment maintenance, site supervision, or a closely related field.
• Strong familiarity with construction-site activities, equipment workflows, and common operating states.
• Ability to recognize common heavy equipment and understand its typical functions and operating activities.
• Ability to distinguish similar equipment actions and separate a larger work sequence into observable tasks.
• Strong visual observation, analytical judgment, attention to detail, and consistency.
• Ability to explain technical or operational activities clearly to people without a construction background.
• Comfortable reviewing repetitive video footage and documenting decisions based on visible evidence.
• Good written and verbal communication skills in English.
• Basic computer proficiency and ability to learn online video-review and annotation tools.