SME Careers Pay in 2026
SME Careers is SuperAnnotate's marketplace for credentialed subject-matter experts who train domain-specific AI. Rates are published per role. The bands below come from live SME Careers listings on NearSkill, refreshed daily, not from marketing pages.
Published range
$5–$120/hr
across 229 hourly roles
What SME Careers is
SME Careers is the expert-hiring marketplace of SuperAnnotate, the San Francisco AI data company backed by NVIDIA Ventures, Databricks Ventures, and Dell Technologies Capital. It places credentialed subject-matter experts in contract AI-training projects across medicine, law, finance, engineering, and the sciences. NearSkill tracks live SME Careers roles with published rates, so the numbers on this page come from actual listings.
244
Active roles tracked
244
With published pay
100%
Pay disclosed
How pay works
- Every role posts its own rate. NearSkill shows the published hourly range or fixed-project amount directly on the listing.
- Expertise sets the band. Documented evaluation work runs around $15/hr, advertised engineering roles reach $60–$100/hr, and rare specialist tracks are reported above $130/hr.
- Payouts run weekly through Deel, the contractor payroll provider. Hours tracked Monday to Sunday are paid the following Friday, and SME Careers never charges experts fees.
- Qualification does not guarantee steady work. Project invitations arrive in waves, and matched experts can sit idle between batches.
Engagement mix
SME Careers pay, by shape
Hourly, monthly, yearly, and one-time amounts are kept separate. They are not interchangeable, so the page never merges them into one invented number.
| Shape | Live range | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Hourly roles | $5–$120/hr | 229 |
| Monthly roles | Listed per role or competitive | — |
| Yearly roles | Listed per role or competitive | — |
| One-time / fixed | Listed per role or competitive | — |
| Pay not disclosed | Listed per role or competitive | — |
Computed from live SME Careers roles on NearSkill. Figures are USD unless stated, updated through the day, and reflect the rates employers published on each listing. Roles without a published rate are counted separately and never estimated. Research rows are the verified 2026 bands: first-party board rates and a first-hand 2025 payout record. Implausible outliers (hourly above $500, yearly above $2M, flipped ranges) are excluded from the range math so one bad row cannot distort the band.
How roles split by pay shape
Hourly
$5–$120/hr
Monthly
No monthly roles
Yearly
No yearly roles
One-time
No fixed roles
What SME Careers is hiring for right now
Live roles grouped by category, with the hourly band each category actually advertises.
Machine Learning & AI
110 roles
$0–$150/hr
Quality Assurance & Testing
102 roles
$0–$120/hr
Other
60 roles
$0–$60/hr
Training & Instructional Design
19 roles
Pay varies by role
Cloud & DevOps
14 roles
Pay varies by role
Data Engineering
13 roles
Pay varies by role
Software Engineering
13 roles
Pay varies by role
Data Science & Analytics
12 roles
Pay varies by role
Live SME Careers roles
The most recent active listings on NearSkill. Roles without a published rate show the current market band instead of an empty field.
KiCad Specialist for Remote PCB Design Tasks Contract
remote
$20/hr
NetBeans Java Specialist for Task Design and Recording
remote
$20/hr
Malay QA Lead for AI Training in Remote Contract
remote
$25/hr
Accounting Specialist for AI Training Content (Remote)
remote
$65/hr
iOS Engineer Swift and Objective-C Remote Contract
remote
$110/hr
Advertising Expert for AI Ad Content Review and QA
remote
$70/hr
PDF Annotation Specialist for Bounding Boxes (Remote)
remote
$3/hr
CV Screening Talent Assessment Specialist Bangladesh
on-site
$4/hr
Astronomer Space Scientist for AI Data Evaluation Contract
remote
$100/hr
Civil Engineer for AI Content Evaluation Remote Contract
remote
$100/hr
Pycharm Copywriter & Content SME for AI Training Remotely
remote
$55/hr
Financial Analyst for FP&A Modeling and Valuation
remote
$85/hr
How SME Careers compares on pay
Where each platform sits on the same USD/hour scale, from the lowest generalist floor to the top expert ceiling.
Mercor
$16–$150/hr
Expert-heavy AI talent platform with live hourly and fixed-project rates
Micro1
$20–$150/hr
Remote-first AI talent marketplace where you set your own billing rate
Turing
$15–$150/hr
Steady AGI training pipeline with standardized pay and expert-track ceilings
SME Careers
$5.00–$120.00/hr
This page
SME Careers pay, answered
How much does SME Careers pay per hour in 2026?
Documented SME Careers work spans about $15/hr for entry evaluation projects to $60–$100/hr on advertised engineering roles, with specialist expert tracks (PhD-level medicine, law, and quant) reported above $130/hr. Each listing carries its own rate, and the platform shows the band before you apply. The table on this page is computed from live SME Careers roles on NearSkill.
Is SME Careers legit?
Yes. SME Careers is the expert-hiring arm of SuperAnnotate, the San Francisco AI data company that raised a $36M Series B in October 2024, led by Socium Ventures with NVIDIA and Databricks Ventures participating, and extended to roughly $50M with Dell Technologies Capital in 2025. Contractor payouts run through Deel under SME Solutions Inc., and the platform never charges experts fees. Online complaint posts trace to selectivity and idle weeks, not missing payments. Apply only on sme.careers and never pay anything, since impersonators run recruitment scams using the name.
Who does SME Careers hire?
Credentialed experts with advanced degrees or deep hands-on knowledge: medicine, law, finance, engineering, software, mathematics, physics, linguistics, and education. Roles are contract and remote, and the platform reports experts in 40+ countries. Expect a profile review, an AI video interview, and a qualification exam before you are matched to projects.
How does SME Careers pay its experts?
Weekly, through Deel. Tracked time runs Monday to Sunday and is paid the following Friday, per a 2025 first-hand payout record. Budget the first payout to land 30–45 days after onboarding, which reviewers report before the weekly cycle starts. Referral bonuses of $25 are added two weeks after the earning period closes.
Is work steady on SME Careers?
No expert holds that guarantee. Qualification clears you into a project pool, and invitations arrive in waves; reviews describe idle stretches between batches, and some roles draw thousands of applicants. Qualifying for multiple roles is the hedge reviewers recommend. Treat SME Careers as supplemental income rather than a salary replacement.
See which SME Careers roles fit you
Upload your resume and get every live SME Careers role ranked by fit score, with the published pay attached. Free, no account, results in under 20 seconds.