Economics jobs in South Africa

Freelance Economics Expert - AI Trainer Mindrift•Cape Town, Western Cape, ZA

This opportunity is only for candidates currently residing in the specified country. Your location may affect eligibility and rates. Please submit your resume in English and indicate your level of English proficiency.

At Mindrift, innovation meets opportunity. We believe in using the power of collective intelligence to ethically shape the future of AI.

What we do

The Mindrift platform connects specialists with AI projects from major tech innovators. Our mission is to unlock the potential of Generative AI by tapping into real-world expertise from across the globe.

Who we’re looking for:

We’re looking for curious and intellectually proactive contributors, the kind of person who double-checks assumptions and plays devil’s advocate.

Are you comfortable with ambiguity and complexity? Does an async, remote, flexible opportunity sound exciting? Would you like to learn how modern AI systems are tested and evaluated?

This is a flexible, project-based opportunity well-suited for:

• Analysts, researchers, experienced professionals and consultants with strong critical thinking skills.
• People open to a part-time and non-permanent opportunity.

About the project:

You will create complex, realistic tasks that push frontier AI agents to their limits. Think scattered data, conditional procedures, and genuine domain expertise required. You'll build a detailed version with objective scoring, then write an ambiguous version intended to train the agent to succeed with less hand-holding. Real expert complexity only. You're improving the AI tools you'll eventually use yourself.

If you have the relevant experience and are ready to take on this challenging and engaging project, join us!

How to get started:

Apply to this post and get the chance to contribute to projects aligned with your skills, on your own schedule. To begin working in production, you’ll need to complete the qualification step and project onboarding, where you’ll get familiar with the guidelines interface and try your first real task with guidance from our quality team. From creating training prompts to refining model responses, you'd be directly shaping how useful these models become for your own future work.

Requirements

• Postgraduate or four-year bachelor’s degree (BS, MSc, MPhil, PhD) from reputable universities with a strong GPA (3.5-4).
• Professional industry experience in accounting with a minimum of 3 years in relevant economics fields (Economics Experts, Analysts, researchers, or consultants). An experience in cross-functional, applied, or international projects, will be an advantage, especially if your expertise has been used in real-world or consulting contexts.
• Ability to write clearly and professionally, including explaining complex tasks in simple, structured language.
• Ability to analyze and synthesize information from multiple sources and turn it into accurate, coherent outputs.
• Creativity in designing realistic and engaging examples, cases, or workflows based on your domain knowledge.
• Excellent analytical thinking: can reason about complex systems, scenarios, and logical implications.
• Exposure to LLMs, prompt engineering, or AI-generated content.
• Strong attention to detail: can spot contradictions, ambiguities, and vague requirements.
• Some understanding of how scoring or evaluation works in agent testing (precision, coverage, etc.).
• Proven ability to use English fluently in professional settings, written and verbal (C1/C2 level).
• Access to a laptop, stable internet connection, and sufficient availability to engage with project tasks.
• Motivation to work with challenging, complex, but well-defined guidelines, learn new methods, and strengthen domain-specific skills.

Why this freelance opportunity might be a great fit for you?

• Get paid for your expertise, with rates that can go up to $21/hour depending on your skills, experience, and project needs.
• Take part in a part-time, remote, freelance project that fits around your primary professional or academic commitments.
• Work on advanced AI projects and gain valuable experience that enhances your portfolio.
• Influence how future AI models understand and communicate in your field of expertise.