Micro1
micro1 is a San Francisco AI training-data company that recruits vetted subject-matter experts — software engineers, PhDs, physicians, lawyers and financial analysts — to build evaluation sets, RLHF and post-training data for frontier AI labs. Applicants are screened by micro1's own AI interviewer, "Zara," rather than by human recruiters. Live listings pay roughly $6 to $175 an hour depending on the role and region.
Quick facts
- Company
- Micro1
- Service type
- Data annotation / AI training data
- Specialties
- image, audio, translation, legal, finance, maths, text, video, software eng. (code / dev tasks), healthcare, stem
- Headquarters
- San Francisco, CA, United States
- Hiring status
- Both: hires workers and takes vendor projects
- Website
- Website
- Careers
- Careers page
- Profile last verified
- 2026-09-09
Application process overview
micro1 runs an unusual funnel: there is no human recruiter screen. Every applicant is interviewed by micro1's own conversational AI, **Zara**, and the transcript plus an integrity score decide whether you progress. The company recruits globally for two very different things — hourly AI-training and evaluation work for subject-matter experts, and salaried full-time roles at micro1 itself. The path for expert work is four steps: apply to a specific opportunity, take the Zara interview, complete onboarding and payment setup, then start earning. Certification is skill-based and per-domain, and passing it does **not** guarantee immediate placement on a project — you enter a vetted pool and are matched when a project opens.
Key findings
* **No human screen.** The first interview is with Zara, micro1's AI interviewer. Reviewers describe it as adaptive and voice-led, and it is the single most-discussed part of the experience. * **Integrity monitoring is part of the score.** Third-party reviews describe automatic failure below an integrity threshold regardless of answer quality. micro1 does not publish this rule, so treat the exact threshold as unconfirmed. * **Certification ≠ placement.** Assessments are structured and per-domain, but micro1 states plainly that certifying does not guarantee a project. * **Pay is wide and role-dependent.** Live listings run from $6–$9/hour on some offshore software roles to $90–$175/hour for QA engineering and $139–$140/hour for specialist data-collection work. Do not quote a single headline rate. * **Global, with about twenty exclusions.** micro1 hires worldwide except Afghanistan, Belarus, China, Cuba, DR Congo, Hong Kong, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Macao, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela and Yemen. * **Payment cadence.** Experts report bi-monthly payments arriving on time, with performance bonuses. Work is fully remote with no published minimum hours. * **A real referral program.** Up to $3,000 per candidate who is hired and logs 10 hours, open to anyone over 18 — you do not need to be a micro1 worker to refer.
Conclusion
micro1 is one of the better-documented platforms in this directory: a real company with a San Francisco office, disclosed funding, named leadership and a public review record. The application is genuinely free and open to applicants worldwide, and the AI-first screen means you usually find out where you stand quickly rather than waiting on a recruiter. Two things to go in with your eyes open about. First, the pay range is enormous and set per role and region — a listing at $6/hour and one at $175/hour sit on the same board, so read the rate before investing time in an interview. Second, micro1's Trustpilot score of 4.7 is built overwhelmingly on reviews of the *interview experience*, not on what it is like to be paid by them over months; it is evidence the funnel works, not evidence about long-run earnings.