Cómo funciona la contratación
DataAnnotation, run by Surge Labs, pays people to train and test AI models. There is one sign-up for everyone. You choose a track during sign-up and take its assessment, and DataAnnotation emails you if you’re approved. Its Trust & Safety page puts it as “No recruiters. No interviews.”
- Sign up at app.dataannotation.tech/worker_signup with your name, email, a password and your phone number.
- Choose a track and take its assessment: about an hour for the Starter Assessment, one to two hours for a specialised one. You can take it only once.
- Wait for an email. DataAnnotation says it tells you within a few days if you’re approved.
- Verify your identity through Persona when you’re asked to after signing in.
- Choose projects from your account, and take specialist assessments to qualify for better-paid work.
- Request your pay to PayPal.
DataAnnotation says it has thousands of active projects. How much work you get depends on your expertise, the quality of your work and the demand for your skills.
Sources: DataAnnotation FAQ · Sign-up page · Trust and Safety
Before you start
- Age. You must be at least 18.
- Where you live. DataAnnotation publishes no list of eligible or excluded countries; its FAQ says it connects contractors around the world. Its privacy notice names representatives for the EU and the UK.
- Fluent English and reliable internet. DataAnnotation asks for both.
- A PayPal account that can receive payments. You’ll give the email address linked to it. Applicants on Trustpilot in a few countries report that PayPal there couldn’t receive payments from a US business, so their earnings were stuck. Check your PayPal account before you start.
- A physical, unexpired government photo ID: a driving licence, passport, or national or state ID card. A phone is recommended for the check.
- No VPN for the identity check. A “VPN detected” message can also come from a work, university or shared device or network.
Applicants on Trustpilot who say they have done paid work write from many countries, including the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, India, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Türkiye, Ukraine, Egypt, Spain and South Korea. This shows where some people have worked, not who is accepted.
Sources: Terms of use · DataAnnotation FAQ · Privacy notice · Trustpilot reviews
Creating your account
- Go to app.dataannotation.tech/worker_signup. You can also start from a role on DataAnnotation’s job board: every Apply button leads to the same sign-up page.
- Enter your first name, last name, email, a password (twice) and your phone number, with the country code if you’re outside the US. All six are required.
- Choose your track by choosing its assessment.
- Take the assessment, and check your answers before you submit.
The sign-up page has no CV upload, LinkedIn field or rate field, and says the role is an independent contractor position. DataAnnotation’s privacy notice says it can collect your location, gender identity, racial and ethnic background, age and first language at registration. If you apply for a job through the site, it can also collect your work history, education and an optional LinkedIn link. Applicants on Trustpilot report being asked for a lot of personal and demographic information, including race (three reviews, May to June 2026).
The sign-up on app.dataannotation.tech is the only way to apply: applications sent any other way are not processed. Keep your account to yourself, as the terms don’t allow anyone else to use your log-in.
Sources: Sign-up page · Job board · Privacy notice · Trust and Safety · Terms of use · Trustpilot reviews
Tracks and requirements
The FAQ names five tracks, each with its own requirements and hourly pay range:
- General: a bachelor’s degree or equivalent real-world experience. $25–$50 an hour.
- Multilingual: native fluency. $25–$40 an hour.
- Coding: programming experience in Python, JavaScript, HTML, C++, C# or SQL. $40–$150+ an hour.
- STEM: a master’s or PhD, or a bachelor’s degree and 10 or more years’ experience. $40–$125+ an hour.
- Professional: a licence or credentials in law, finance or medicine. $40–$125+ an hour.
The FAQ says all tracks pay more for strong performance, and that work above $50 an hour requires advanced degrees or credentials.
DataAnnotation’s pages disagree on degrees. The FAQ asks for the qualifications above, but role pages such as Generalist, Software Engineer, Mathematician, Hindi Specialist and Health/Medical Expert say “No degree required”. To be safe, choose a track whose FAQ requirements you meet.
Roles on the job board
The job board lists 112 roles, in languages, finance, engineering, law, STEM, accounting, medicine, coding and other fields. Some of what the role pages ask for:
- Generalist: strong reading comprehension, attention to detail, and clear, natural written English.
- Software Engineer: professional or serious open-source experience shipping production code, and comfort in a major stack (most tasks use Python, C++, Rust, Go or JavaScript).
- Hindi Specialist: native or near-native Hindi and clear written English; translation or localisation experience preferred.
- Mathematician: graduate-level, competition or equivalent maths and proof-writing; LaTeX helps.
- Medical expert: clinical or health-professional experience.
Across all of them, DataAnnotation asks for excellent writing and critical reasoning, attention to detail, and the ability to follow detailed instructions on your own. You don’t set your own rate.
Sources: DataAnnotation FAQ · Job board · Generalist · Software Engineer · Hindi Specialist · Mathematician · Medical expert
The Starter Assessment
The Starter Assessment takes about an hour; the specialised assessments for coding and expert tracks take one to two hours. DataAnnotation says it gives you direct experience of the kinds of project you would work on once approved. The work includes rating chatbot responses, comparing outputs, flagging factual errors, testing AI images, writing difficult prompts and reviewing code, from survey-style tasks to chatbot conversations and creative writing.
- One attempt. The assessment can be taken only once, with no retakes. Review your answers before you submit.
- Accuracy over speed. Reviewers look for thoroughness and accuracy, not speed.
- Time. Plan for about an hour, or one to two hours for a specialised assessment, with time left to check your work.
- The right track. Coding needs real programming experience, and the higher tracks need advanced degrees, long experience or a licence.
DataAnnotation publishes no question count, format or sample questions, and no rules on camera, microphone or supervision. Its pages don’t say the assessment is paid. Applicants on Trustpilot report that it was unpaid (about eight reviews, May to October 2026), and one reports a coding test taking about three hours.
The decision
DataAnnotation says it emails you within a few days of your submission if you’re approved, and that you then have access to the platform straight away. If you hear nothing, your application is still under review or hasn’t been accepted. It contacts you only if you pass and it has work that matches your skills, and it can’t reply to every applicant.
Sources: DataAnnotation FAQ · Generalist · Trustpilot reviews
Specialist assessments and qualifications
After passing, you can take more specialist assessments to qualify for better-paid projects. DataAnnotation describes a qualification-based system that matches you to projects at your skill level, and its terms say you may need to pass qualification tests.
- DataAnnotation’s pages don’t say whether qualifications are paid. Applicants on Trustpilot report that many were unpaid; one reports about 20 unpaid hours of them.
- Two applicants on Trustpilot describe a further “Core” assessment after the Starter Assessment, one of them stuck on its holding screen. DataAnnotation’s own pages don’t mention a Core step.
- A few positive reviews on Trustpilot say several projects appeared once the basic qualifications were done.
Sources: DataAnnotation FAQ · Terms of use · Trustpilot reviews
AI tools and conduct
DataAnnotation’s public pages say nothing about using ChatGPT or other AI tools in the assessments or the work. Its terms say the work you hand in must be your own original work. Follow any rule given in the assessment or in a project’s instructions.
What can end your access
- poor or problematic work, which can cost you access to future projects;
- inaccurate registration details, or not completing required documents, which can lead to immediate termination;
- letting anyone else use your log-in;
- breaking confidentiality, which covers even the nature of the work. A separate confidentiality agreement may be required.
The terms let the company end your work at any time, for any reason or none, and rejected work isn’t paid. Your activity on the platform is logged, including the tasks you choose and complete and the time you spend. Some work can include disturbing content.
Sources: DataAnnotation FAQ · Terms of use · Privacy notice
Identity check, contract and tax
DataAnnotation asks you to verify your identity through Persona after you sign in. There is no deadline, and it takes a few minutes if your documents are ready. You can’t take part without it. DataAnnotation never asks for money for the check.
- Have a physical, unexpired government photo ID ready: a driving licence, passport, or national or state ID card.
- Use a phone if you can, in good light, with any VPN turned off.
- Photograph the front and back of the ID, laid flat, without glare and without covering any part of it.
- Confirm your basic details.
- Take a selfie without glasses, turning your head fully to the left and right.
An out-of-date address on your ID is fine if you have lived there. If the check fails, look for glare, an expired ID, a VPN or a shared network, and try another ID or a phone on a different Wi-Fi network. DataAnnotation occasionally asks for the check to be done again when something needs clarifying. DataAnnotation and Persona keep the data, including biometric data, for verification only.
Contract and tax
- The terms are an agreement with Surge Labs, Inc. You’re an independent contractor, with no benefits, not full-time or exclusive, and you control your own methods and hours.
- Everything you produce, and the rights in it, belongs to the company.
- California law applies, with individual arbitration (JAMS, Santa Clara County), no class actions, and one year to bring a claim.
- When asked, you give an IRS Form W-9 or W-8, or other documents. You pay your own income and self-employment tax.
Sources: DataAnnotation FAQ · Terms of use
Pay and hours
- How: PayPal, or another platform the company names. All payments are in US dollars. Enter the exact email address linked to your PayPal account, or create an account if you have none.
- Rates: by track, as above, with more for strong performance. You’re paid only for work the company judges satisfactory.
- Hours: no minimum and no daily log-in. Work is available around the clock, every day, and you work as little or as much as you want. The time you spend on tasks is logged.
DataAnnotation’s pages disagree on timing. The FAQ says deposits arrive within a few days after you request them; the role pages say “Weekly payouts”. Neither gives a holding period or a minimum withdrawal. Plan on the longer of the two.
Applicants on Trustpilot report PayPal payments arriving on time when there is work (about six reviews). A few, in countries where PayPal couldn’t receive payments from a US business, report earnings they couldn’t collect.
Sources: Terms of use · DataAnnotation FAQ · Generalist · Privacy notice · Trustpilot reviews
Why applications stall
DataAnnotation doesn’t promise a reply if you aren’t accepted, and publishes no time to first work. The reasons its own pages give for applications going nowhere:
- no email after the assessment, which means the application is still under review or hasn’t been accepted;
- a rushed Starter Assessment, which can’t be retaken;
- a track whose requirements you don’t meet;
- an ID check stopped by glare, an expired ID, a VPN or a shared network;
- applying anywhere other than the sign-up on app.dataannotation.tech;
- few or no projects after approval, which DataAnnotation puts down to demand for your skills and your past performance.
What DataAnnotation says helps: be thorough and accurate, review your answers before you submit, qualify for long-running projects and keep the quality of your work high.
What applicants report
Applicants on Trustpilot report hearing nothing after the Starter or coding assessment, sometimes for months; it is the most common complaint there (about 20 reviews, May to October 2026). Others report passing the assessments and ID check and then finding an empty or nearly empty dashboard for weeks or months, or only short qualification tasks. Some longer-standing workers describe work coming in waves, with long gaps between projects. Other reviews describe accounts locked or closed without a reason, a few of them suspended for alleged payment fraud shortly before a payout, with no way to appeal and no reply from support. These are reports from individual reviewers, not a measure of how often each thing happens.
Sources: DataAnnotation FAQ · Trust and Safety · Trustpilot reviews
Official addresses and scams
- DataAnnotation’s sites are dataannotation.tech and app.dataannotation.tech. You sign in at app.dataannotation.tech/users/sign_in and sign up at app.dataannotation.tech/worker_signup.
- DataAnnotation never asks for money: it pays you, not the other way round.
- It asks for financial details only inside the platform, once you’ve logged in. Anyone asking for them while you aren’t logged in isn’t DataAnnotation.
- Ignore invitations to apply outside the sign-up, and don’t answer direct messages from anyone outside its verified recruitment team.
- Support is only inside your account: open the menu at the top right and choose Support. There is no public support email.
- Its official pages elsewhere are on LinkedIn (dataannotationtech), Indeed, Glassdoor, Facebook (dataannotation), Instagram (dataannotation.tech) and Trustpilot.
DataAnnotation publishes no email address or sending domain. To check a message, sign in at app.dataannotation.tech yourself rather than through a link in it. Its FAQ lists warning signs for any remote job: “guaranteed income”, paying for a starter kit, and hidden payment arrangements.
Sources: Trust and Safety · DataAnnotation FAQ · Our official-sites checker
From DataAnnotation's own help pages, read on 2 November 2026, and, where marked, what applicants report. Platforms change their process; their own pages are the final word. See also how to spot a fake job.