AI Trainer (Engineering Sciences)
micro1 • Remote
Education
PhD
Type
Hourly
Pay
$60-120/hr
Your rate depends on your experience and the task.
Actively hiring
100 openings
Checked
Only apply if this role fits your skills and interests.
About this role
From the micro1 listing
Pay: $60–$120/hour equivalent, paid per accepted task Location: Global, fully remote Job Type: Contractor Time Commitment: 15+ hours per week Schedule: Flexible micro1 is looking for Computational Engineers with prior professional AI-training or model-evaluation experience to support a project focused on improving advanced AI systems. You will use your engineering expertise and programming skills to create challenging technical tasks, evaluate model-generated code and analyses, identify failures, and establish objective standards for correct solutions. This role is intended for candidates who have completed substantive AI-training work involving engineering or other technical content.
What You’ll Work On
- Create realistic computational engineering tasks that challenge advanced AI models.
- Develop task instructions, reproducible environments, reference solutions, and evaluation criteria.
- Evaluate model-generated code, calculations, simulations, designs, analyses, and technical deliverables.
Required Qualifications
- Prior paid experience training, evaluating, benchmarking, or improving AI systems on engineering or technical tasks.
- Deep expertise in at least one relevant engineering specialization.
- Strong programming or scripting ability, with Python strongly preferred.
- Hands-on experience using computational methods for engineering analysis, simulation, modeling, optimization, testing, automation, or data processing.
- Experience creating or validating technical results with clear and reproducible answers. Relevant specializations may include mechanical and aerospace engineering, electrical and computer engineering, electronics and embedded systems, chemical and process engineering, civil and structural engineering, manufacturing and industrial engineering, robotics and controls, energy systems, and biomedical engineering.
Public Proof of Skill
Strong applicants should provide evidence such as:
- Designs taken into production
- Simulations validated against test data
- Complex engineering failures personally diagnosed
- Patents, publications, or technical reports
- Public engineering code, scripts, models, or simulations
- Open-source hardware or engineering-software contributions
- Engineering competition results
- Reproducible notebooks, benchmarks, or technical projects Confidential employer or customer materials should not be shared.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience creating AI-training tasks, reference solutions, rubrics, graders, or benchmark problems.
- Experience reviewing other AI trainers’ technical submissions.
- A master’s degree, PhD, or substantial professional experience in a relevant engineering discipline.
- Experience with command-line tools, scripting interfaces, configuration files, solver APIs, or programmatic engineering software.
- Experience validating computational results against calculations, simulations, measurements, or physical tests.
- Prior experience with long-horizon or agentic AI evaluations.
- Availability to begin immediately.
Application Process
- Submit your application, AI-training experience, specialization, and public technical evidence.
- Complete an AI interview containing technical and integrity checks.
- Complete a hiring-manager review.
- If selected, complete project onboarding and begin your first assigned task.
Compensation
- Compensation is output-based. Experts are paid for tasks that meet project specifications and quality requirements. Task availability and completion time may vary.
Requirements
- Hardware
- Aerodynamics
- Mechanical Engineering
- Electrical Engineering
- AI Training
- Programming Skills
How long hiring takes
On the platforms we refer people to, half of hires came within about 25 days of applying. Time from applying to hire:
AI Trainer interview prep
Questions AI Trainer interviewers often ask. They aren't taken from this listing.
How do you evaluate whether a model's response to a prompt satisfies the instruction, versus just sounding plausible?
I go back to the instruction line by line and check each requirement against the response individually, rather than reading the response holistically and asking if it feels right. A confident, well-written response can still quietly skip a constraint the prompt asked for.
What's your process for writing a rating rubric that two different reviewers would apply the same way?
I define each rating level with a concrete example rather than an abstract description, since two reviewers can read the same adjective differently but usually agree on whether a response matches a given example. I test the rubric on a handful of edge cases with another reviewer before rolling it out.
How do you decide when a prompt itself is ambiguous versus when the model's response is simply wrong?
I ask whether a reasonable person could interpret the prompt more than one way and still be following the instruction correctly. If the response fails under every reasonable reading, it's a model error; if it only fails under one specific reading, the prompt needs to be flagged as ambiguous instead.
How do you document the reasoning behind a rating so someone reviewing your work later understands the decision?
I write a short note pointing to the specific part of the response that drove the rating, so a reviewer can see what I was reacting to. A rating with no reasoning attached is hard to audit and even harder to disagree with productively.
Why this role
This AI Trainer (Engineering Sciences) position pays $60-120/hr for STEM expertise, with no clients to find or invoices to send.
Talent pool
We're light on STEM candidates
We've tracked 1,036 STEM listings and have few candidates to put forward for them. Set up a profile and we'll consider you for roles like this one.
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Common questions
Can I apply to micro1 from outside the US or UK?
Yes. micro1 accepts applicants from most countries. Most roles need strong written and spoken English.
Does micro1 monitor your computer while you work?
On many projects, yes. Time-tracking tools take screenshots now and then to confirm your hours. Check the project's requirements before you accept it.
Do I need a PhD for research-level AI training roles?
The best-paid roles usually expect a PhD or current enrollment. The domain assessment decides, though, and if you can solve the problems the degree matters less.
Is research-level AI training steady work?
Usually not. Work comes in projects, such as training a model on quantum mechanics, that can last a few weeks. Plan for it like a short fellowship.
What does STEM work look like for an AI Trainer (Engineering Sciences)?
You check AI answers to STEM questions, correct their errors and write expert reasoning. As an AI Trainer (Engineering Sciences), you're hired for that judgment, so hands-on STEM experience matters.
What specific skills does this listing call for?
Hardware, Aerodynamics, Mechanical Engineering, and Electrical Engineering are named directly in the listing. If you don't have hands-on experience with these, expect the screening to test for them.
What does the 'openings' count on this listing mean?
It's how many people micro1 still wants to hire for this role: 100 when we last checked. A high number means more places to fill. The screening stays the same.
How much does this specific role pay?
This listing is posted at $60-120/hr, an hourly rate. Where you land in the range depends on your background and the assessment. Pay can change after we check the listing, so confirm the rate on the platform's application page.
What happens when I click Apply on this listing?
Apply opens micro1's site, where you create an account and follow its sign-up steps.
Is a PhD required?
For this role, yes, or similar professional depth, and the assessment checks it. PhD candidates and people with published research have qualified without the degree.