Software Engineer - AI Trainer

DataAnnotation; McLean (VA); Remote; USD 170,000 - 243,000; Full time

Job summary

DataAnnotation is pioneering how we validate AI-assisted coding by running agentic coding sessions on real engineering tasks and documenting failures to train the next generation of coding agents. You will analyze model outputs, fix issues, and push features while maintaining high standards of written English to clearly explain findings.

The team values practical skills over degrees, emphasizes remote work, and offers flexible project-based opportunities with compensation up to $150+ per hour

Qualifications

• Professional or serious open-source experience shipping production code.
• Clear written English; explanations are the training signal.
• No degree required; demonstrated ability matters more.

Responsibilities

• Vibe-code with frontier models on real tasks: fix a bug, extend an API, ship a feature, and see how far the model gets on its own.
• Analyze the AI's work against production standards: find bugs, explain failure, and rate the model's reasoning.
• Red-team the models to expose unsafe code, faked test passes, and confidently wrong solutions before real users hit them.

Skills

Open-source experience

Clear written English

Job description

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.

You'll run agentic coding sessions on real engineering tasks, analyze what the models produce, and red-team them until they fail in interesting ways. Every failure you document teaches the next generation of coding agents.

What you’ll actually do

• Vibe-code with frontier models on real tasks: fix a bug, extend an API, ship a feature, and see how far the model gets on its own.
• Analyze the AI's work against production standards: find the bugs, explain the failure, and rate the model's reasoning.
• Red-team the models to expose unsafe code, faked test passes, and confidently wrong solutions before real users hit them.

What we look for

• Professional or serious open-source experience shipping production code.
• Clear written English: your explanations are the training signal.
• No degree required. We care about what you can do, not where you learned it.

Compensation

Up to $150+/hr depending on task difficulty and specialization. Many contributors add $100k–$200k a year; some make it their full-time income.

About DataAnnotation

DataAnnotation is where 1M+ experts train the world’s leading AI models. Hundreds of millions paid to contributors to date, and the average contributor stays 5+ years. Flexible, remote, and always project-available.