Guide · Updated August 2026
Scale AI vs Surge AI (for annotators)
Both companies pay people to create training data. They are not interchangeable if you are the person taking the assessment. This comparison is for job seekers using DataAnnotationJobs.org. Neither firm runs this site.
Snapshot
| Scale AI | Surge AI | |
|---|---|---|
| Shape of the work | Broad: vision, AV, language, government, high volume | Narrower: high-quality language, RLHF, frontier-lab style tasks |
| Worker-facing brands | Career site plus contractor platforms that have changed names over time | Mostly Surge itself; reputation is “harder test, pickier queue” |
| Typical fit | You want more hours and mixed task types | You write and reason well and can stand a strict rubric |
| Company page on this board | Scale AI jobs | Surge AI jobs |
Scale AI
Scale is the large data platform: autonomous vehicles, government work, and LLM data. For annotators that usually means more task variety and more process. Listings on this board have included vision-and-language annotation and on-site AV QA at very different rates. See the salary guide. Expect a structured assessment and ongoing QA, not a casual gig you can half-attend.
Official site: scale.com. Roles we are tracking: Scale AI jobs.
Surge AI
Surge’s public positioning is quality labeling and RLHF for labs that care about preference data, not just throughput. Worker reports (and the way their tests are designed) cluster around writing, code, and reasoning. If your strength is careful justifications, this is often the better filter. If you need maximum hours of simple boxes, it may feel slow or closed.
Official site: surgehq.ai. Roles: Surge AI jobs. Pair with what RLHF work is.
Where Mercor fits
Mercor is closer to an AI-native recruiting marketplace than to a classic annotation factory. Listings there are often expert or writing-heavy trainer work. It is a third door, not a clone of Scale or Surge. Micro1 and HireCade sit in the same “marketplace / emerging platform” bucket on our companies index.
Apply from the job URL on this site so you land on the current employer application. Passing tests is covered in how to pass annotation assessments.