Key findings

1
Scale AI had the most open staff roles on 18 Oct 2026 (182), then Mercor (112) and Handshake (88).
Figure 1
2
Engineering and product is the largest function in vendor hiring: 191 roles, 28.5% of all open staff roles.
Figure 2
3
8 vendor roles are in data acquisition and partnerships, at Scale AI, Handshake, Snorkel AI, AfterQuery and Toloka.
Figure 3
4
99 roles are in research, evals and RL environments (14.8%), at 13 vendors.
Figure 2

Figure 1

Open staff roles at each human-data vendor, by function

How fast is each vendor hiring, and for what?

Vendor	Open staff roles	Data acquisition and partnerships	Expert supply and community	Expert and contractor roles	Research, evals and RL environments	Delivery and operations	Sales and go-to-market	Engineering and product	Corporate	Largest function
Scale AI	182	0.5%	0.5%	8.8%	9.3%	27.5%	23.6%	25.8%	3.8%	Delivery and operations
Mercor	112	0.0%	1.8%	0.0%	12.5%	20.5%	15.2%	41.1%	8.9%	Engineering and product
Handshake	88	4.5%	0.0%	5.7%	9.1%	26.1%	25.0%	20.5%	9.1%	Delivery and operations
Snorkel AI	44	2.3%	4.5%	4.5%	13.6%	25.0%	9.1%	22.7%	18.2%	Delivery and operations
AfterQuery	40	2.5%	0.0%	2.5%	20.0%	37.5%	10.0%	17.5%	10.0%	Delivery and operations
Encord	39	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	2.6%	23.1%	28.2%	43.6%	0.0%	Engineering and product
Prime Intellect	35	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	28.6%	11.4%	17.1%	31.4%	5.7%	Engineering and product
Prolific	33	0.0%	3.0%	0.0%	15.2%	27.3%	12.1%	33.3%	6.1%	Engineering and product
HUD	30	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	36.7%	16.7%	20.0%	23.3%	0.0%	Research, evals and RL environments
Turing	29	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	37.9%	20.7%	6.9%	24.1%	10.3%	Research, evals and RL environments
Toloka	18	5.6%	0.0%	0.0%	16.7%	27.8%	33.3%	5.6%	5.6%	Sales and go-to-market
Halluminate	10	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	20.0%	20.0%	0.0%	40.0%	20.0%	Engineering and product
Labelbox	7	0.0%	14.3%	0.0%	42.9%	14.3%	0.0%	14.3%	0.0%	Research, evals and RL environments
Mechanize	4	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	100.0%	0.0%	Engineering and product

Sample. 671 staff roles open on the public boards of 14 human-data vendors on 18 Oct 2026; shares are of each vendor's own open roles.

Staff roles only: the expert and contractor roles vendors recruit for are counted in this site's other reports, from their job feeds.

Some vendors keep a single evergreen posting per team, so open roles measure hiring intent, not headcount.

Source. AITraining.jobs Research, Where Human-Data Vendors Are Building, read 18 Oct 2026.

Figure 2

What the vendors are hiring for

Across the human-data vendors, which functions are they building?

Function	Open roles	Share	Vendors hiring	Which
Engineering and product	191	28.5%	14	Scale AI, Mercor, Handshake, Snorkel AI and AfterQuery
Delivery and operations	163	24.3%	13	Scale AI, Mercor, Handshake, Snorkel AI and AfterQuery
Sales and go-to-market	125	18.6%	11	Scale AI, Mercor, Handshake, Snorkel AI and AfterQuery
Research, evals and RL environments	99	14.8%	13	Scale AI, Mercor, Handshake, Snorkel AI and AfterQuery
Corporate	47	7.0%	10	Scale AI, Mercor, Handshake, Snorkel AI and AfterQuery
Expert and contractor roles	24	3.6%	4	Scale AI, Handshake, Snorkel AI and AfterQuery
Data acquisition and partnerships	8	1.2%	5	Scale AI, Handshake, Snorkel AI, AfterQuery and Toloka
Expert supply and community	7	1.0%	5	Scale AI, Mercor, Snorkel AI, Prolific and Labelbox
Other	7	1.0%	6	Encord, Prime Intellect, HUD, Prolific and Toloka

Sample. The 671 staff roles, each counted once in the first function its title matches.

Data acquisition and partnerships: data acquisition, data partnerships, data licensing and sourcing, supply partnerships.

Expert supply and community: talent and expert supply, contributor and community growth, expert recruiting and vetting.

Expert and contractor roles: fellowships, subject-matter experts, red teamers and tutors that vendors post on their staff boards.

Research, evals and RL environments: research scientists and engineers, evaluations, RL environments, post-training.

Delivery and operations: strategic projects, project and program management, engagement, delivery and data operations.

Sales and go-to-market: sales, account management, go-to-market, marketing, business development.

Engineering and product: software, infrastructure and machine-learning engineering, product, design.

Corporate: finance, legal, people and recruiting, executive office.

Source. AITraining.jobs Research, Where Human-Data Vendors Are Building, read 18 Oct 2026.

Figure 3

Data-acquisition, expert-supply and research roles

Which vendor roles buy data, recruit experts or build RL environments?

Role	Vendor	Function	Location	Stated pay
Data Acquisition LeadPosting	AfterQuery	Data acquisition and partnerships	San Francisco	$150K to $275K a year
Account Executive, Data PartnershipsPosting	Handshake	Data acquisition and partnerships	Nashville, TN	n/a
Data Partnerships RepresentativePosting	Handshake	Data acquisition and partnerships	Nashville, TN	n/a
Manager, Data PartnershipsPosting	Handshake	Data acquisition and partnerships	Nashville, TN	n/a
Sales Development Representative, Data PartnershipsPosting	Handshake	Data acquisition and partnerships	Nashville, TN	n/a
Data Acquisition Lead, Frontier EnvironmentsPosting	Scale AI	Data acquisition and partnerships	San Francisco, CA; New York, NY	$182K to $228K a year
Director, Data PartnershipsPosting	Snorkel AI	Data acquisition and partnerships	San Francisco, CA (Hybrid)	$215K to $315K a year
Freelance Data Partnerships LeadPosting	Toloka	Data acquisition and partnerships	European Union, Serbia, Georgia	n/a
Global Specialized Domain Expert Recruiter (Contractor)Posting	Labelbox	Expert supply and community	Remote, United States	n/a
Product Engineer, Talent ExperiencePosting	Mercor	Expert supply and community	San Francisco	$160K to $500K a year
Talent Intelligence & Analytics ManagerPosting	Mercor	Expert supply and community	Mercor HQ, 181 Fremont Street	$140K to $180K a year
Talent Acquisition Lead, ProductPosting	Prolific	Expert supply and community	London, England, United Kingdom	n/a
Contributor Experience Manager, CommunityPosting	Scale AI	Expert supply and community	San Francisco, CA; New York, NY	$134K to $168K a year
Director of Expert Supply GrowthPosting	Snorkel AI	Expert supply and community	New York City, NY (Hybrid); San Francisco, CA (Hybrid)	n/a
Senior Manager, Coder FellowsPosting	Snorkel AI	Expert supply and community	United States (Remote)	$175K to $250K a year
AI/ML Research InternPosting	AfterQuery	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	n/a
Research EngineerPosting	AfterQuery	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$210K to $450K a year
Research Program ManagerPosting	AfterQuery	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$175K to $191K a year
Research ScholarPosting	AfterQuery	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	n/a
Research Scientist - Post TrainingPosting	AfterQuery	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$210K to $450K a year
Research Scientist – Frontier EvaluationsPosting	AfterQuery	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$210K to $450K a year
Research Technical Program ManagerPosting	AfterQuery	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$210K to $450K a year
Software Engineer - RL EnvironmentsPosting	AfterQuery	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$260K to $290K a year
Research EngineerPosting	Encord	Research, evals and RL environments	London	n/a
Member of Technical Staff - Finance ResearcherPosting	Halluminate	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$215K to $275K a year
Member of Technical Staff - Research / Post-TrainingPosting	Halluminate	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$250K to $320K a year
AI Model Policy Trainer, Image Evaluation - Seattle OnsitePosting	Handshake	Research, evals and RL environments	Seattle, WA	$36 to $72 an hour
Data Scientist, Handshake AIPosting	Handshake	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco, CA	$135K to $180K a year
Member of Technical Staff, EvalsPosting	Handshake	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco, CA	$200K to $350K a year
Member of Technical Staff, Post-TrainingPosting	Handshake	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco, CA	$200K to $350K a year
Member of Technical Staff, Post-Training (India)Posting	Handshake	Research, evals and RL environments	India	n/a
Senior Data Scientist, Product AnalyticsPosting	Handshake	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco, CA	$175K to $205K a year
Senior Software Engineer, Reinforcement Learning EnvironmentsPosting	Handshake	Research, evals and RL environments	India	n/a
Software Engineer II, Reinforcement Learning EnvironmentsPosting	Handshake	Research, evals and RL environments	India	n/a
Forward Deployed Research EngineerPosting	HUD	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$100K to $180K a year
Full-Stack Software Engineer, Reinforcement LearningPosting	HUD	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$100K to $225K a year
Lead Research Engineer, Data QualityPosting	HUD	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$120K to $295K a year
Research Engineer (General)Posting	HUD	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$100K to $230K a year
Research Engineer, BenchmarksPosting	HUD	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$100K to $230K a year
Research Engineer, Privacy and AnonymizationPosting	HUD	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$100K to $230K a year
Research Engineer, QC AutomationPosting	HUD	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$100K to $230K a year
Research Engineer, Robotics DataPosting	HUD	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$100K to $230K a year
Research Engineer, Robotics EvalsPosting	HUD	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$100K to $230K a year
Research Engineer, Synthetic DataPosting	HUD	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$100K to $230K a year
Senior Research ManagerPosting	HUD	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$120K to $295K a year
Forward Deployed Engineer, RL EnvironmentsPosting	Labelbox	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco Bay Area	$140K to $200K a year
Forward Deployed Research ScientistPosting	Labelbox	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco Bay Area	$200K to $300K a year
Staff ML Engineer, Agent Training & EnvironmentsPosting	Labelbox	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco Bay Area	$250K to $280K a year
Data ScientistPosting	Mercor	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$160K to $500K a year
Member of Technical Staff, Deeptune EnvironmentsPosting	Mercor	Research, evals and RL environments	New York City	$160K to $500K a year
Member of Technical Staff, Enterprise Evals PlatformPosting	Mercor	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$220K to $425K a year
Mercor AI Research Fund GrantsPosting	Mercor	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$5000K to $5000K a year
Mercor AI Safety Fund GrantsPosting	Mercor	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	n/a
Research Engineer - Environments, Data and Post-TrainingPosting	Mercor	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$180K to $500K a year
Research Engineer – BenchmarkingPosting	Mercor	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$200K to $500K a year
Research Engineer, Real EnvironmentsPosting	Mercor	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$160K to $500K a year
Research InternPosting	Mercor	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$80 to $80 an hour
Research Operations, CodePosting	Mercor	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$130K to $250K a year
Research Program ManagerPosting	Mercor	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$120K to $200K a year
Research Scientist - Environments, Data and Post-TrainingPosting	Mercor	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$250K to $500K a year
Research Scientist, APEX BenchmarksPosting	Mercor	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	$200K to $500K a year
Senior PMM, EvalsPosting	Mercor	Research, evals and RL environments	Mercor HQ, 181 Fremont Street	$190K to $230K a year
Applied Research - Evals & DataPosting	Prime Intellect	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	n/a
Applied Research - Forward-DeployedPosting	Prime Intellect	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	n/a
Applied Research - RL & AgentsPosting	Prime Intellect	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	n/a
Research Engineer - Data and EvaluationPosting	Prime Intellect	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	n/a
Research Engineer - Distributed TrainingPosting	Prime Intellect	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	n/a
Research Engineer - InferencePosting	Prime Intellect	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	n/a
Research Engineer - PretrainingPosting	Prime Intellect	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	n/a
Research Engineer - Pretraining DataPosting	Prime Intellect	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	n/a
Research Engineer - RL InfrastructurePosting	Prime Intellect	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	n/a
Research Engineer / Scientist - Reinforcement LearningPosting	Prime Intellect	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco	n/a
Human Data Operations Partner, ResearchPosting	Prolific	Research, evals and RL environments	United Kingdom	n/a
Research ConsultantPosting	Prolific	Research, evals and RL environments	New York	n/a
Research ConsultantPosting	Prolific	Research, evals and RL environments	Remote, US	n/a
Senior Applied Scientist, SupplyPosting	Prolific	Research, evals and RL environments	London	n/a
Senior Software Engineer (Agent Training and Evals)Posting	Prolific	Research, evals and RL environments	Remote, UK	n/a
Machine Learning Research Scientist, EvaluationsPosting	Scale AI	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA; New York, NY	$166K to $207K a year
Machine Learning Research Scientist, Post-TrainingPosting	Scale AI	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA; New York, NY	$166K to $207K a year
ML Research Engineer, ML SystemsPosting	Scale AI	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA; New York, NY	$190K to $237K a year
Research Advisor - Human Frontier Collective (UK)Posting	Scale AI	Research, evals and RL environments	United Kingdom	n/a
Research Advisor - Human Frontier Collective (US)Posting	Scale AI	Research, evals and RL environments	United States	n/a
Research Scientist, Agent RobustnessPosting	Scale AI	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco, CA; New York, NY	$216K to $270K a year
Research Scientist, AI Controls and MonitoringPosting	Scale AI	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco, CA; New York, NY	$216K to $270K a year
Research Scientist, Frontier Risk EvaluationsPosting	Scale AI	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco, CA; New York, NY	$216K to $270K a year
Research Scientist, Safety Post TrainingPosting	Scale AI	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco, CA; New York, NY	$216K to $270K a year
Safety Research Scholar - Human Frontier LabsPosting	Scale AI	Research, evals and RL environments	Canada; United Kingdom; United States	n/a
Senior / Staff Machine Learning Research Scientist, AgentsPosting	Scale AI	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA; New York, NY	$302K to $378K a year
Senior Manager, Research ScientistPosting	Scale AI	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco, CA; New York, NY	$290K to $363K a year
Senior/Staff Machine Learning Research Engineer, General Agents, Enterprise GenAIPosting	Scale AI	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco, CA; New York, NY	$290K to $363K a year
Staff Software Engineer, RL EnvironmentsPosting	Scale AI	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco, CA; New York, NY	$252K to $315K a year
Staff/Senior Machine Learning Research Engineer, Intelligent SystemsPosting	Scale AI	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco, CA; New York, NY	$250K to $350K a year
Tech Lead Manager- MLRE, ML SystemsPosting	Scale AI	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco, CA; New York, NY	$290K to $363K a year
VP, ResearchPosting	Scale AI	Research, evals and RL environments	San Francisco, CA; New York, NY	$397K to $496K a year
Director, Forward Deployed Researcher - Data as a ServicePosting	Snorkel AI	Research, evals and RL environments	New York City, NY (Hybrid); San Francisco, CA (Hybrid); United States (Remote)	$228K to $403K a year
Director, Research - Evaluation & TrainingPosting	Snorkel AI	Research, evals and RL environments	New York City, NY (Hybrid); San Francisco, CA (Hybrid); United States (Remote)	$275K to $425K a year
Forward Deployed Researcher - Data as a ServicePosting	Snorkel AI	Research, evals and RL environments	New York City, NY (Hybrid); San Francisco, CA (Hybrid); United States (Remote)	$160K to $400K a year
Research ScientistPosting	Snorkel AI	Research, evals and RL environments	New York City, NY (Hybrid); San Francisco, CA (Hybrid); United States (Remote)	$200K to $375K a year
Research Scientist - Frontier BenchmarksPosting	Snorkel AI	Research, evals and RL environments	New York City, NY (Hybrid); San Francisco, CA (Hybrid); United States (Remote)	$200K to $375K a year
Research Scientist - Human-AI SystemsPosting	Snorkel AI	Research, evals and RL environments	New York City, NY (Hybrid); San Francisco, CA (Hybrid); United States (Remote)	$200K to $375K a year
Principal ML ResearcherPosting	Toloka	Research, evals and RL environments	European Union	n/a
Program Director - Enterprise Fine-TuningPosting	Toloka	Research, evals and RL environments	United States	n/a
Program Director - Enterprise Fine-TuningPosting	Toloka	Research, evals and RL environments	European Union	n/a
Research EngineerPosting	Turing	Research, evals and RL environments	Colombia, Huila, Colombia	n/a
Research Engineer, Frontier DataPosting	Turing	Research, evals and RL environments	Brazil	n/a
Research Scientist, STEMPosting	Turing	Research, evals and RL environments	United States	n/a
Senior Research EngineerPosting	Turing	Research, evals and RL environments	United States	n/a
Senior Research Engineer, Frontier DataPosting	Turing	Research, evals and RL environments	United States	n/a
Senior Research Engineer, SWEPosting	Turing	Research, evals and RL environments	United States	n/a
Senior Research Scientist, STEMPosting	Turing	Research, evals and RL environments	United States	n/a
Staff Research EngineerPosting	Turing	Research, evals and RL environments	United States	n/a
Staff Research Engineer, Enterprise KnowledgePosting	Turing	Research, evals and RL environments	United States	n/a
Staff Research Engineer, Frontier DataPosting	Turing	Research, evals and RL environments	United States	n/a
Staff Research ScientistPosting	Turing	Research, evals and RL environments	United States	n/a

Sample. 114 roles open on 18 Oct 2026, each linked to its posting.

Source. AITraining.jobs Research, Where Human-Data Vendors Are Building, read 18 Oct 2026.

Figure 4

Which vendor boards were read

Whose hiring does this report see?

Vendor	Job board	Read today	Open roles
AfterQuery	Ashby	Yes	40
Encord	Ashby	Yes	39
Halluminate	Ashby	Yes	10
Handshake	Ashby	Yes	88
HUD	Ashby	Yes	30
Labelbox	Greenhouse	Yes	7
Mechanize	Ashby	Yes	4
Mercor	Ashby	Yes	112
Prime Intellect	Ashby	Yes	35
Prolific	Greenhouse	Yes	33
Scale AI	Greenhouse	Yes	182
Snorkel AI	Greenhouse	Yes	44
Toloka	Greenhouse	Yes	18
Turing	Greenhouse	Yes	29

Sample. 14 public job boards, read on 18 Oct 2026.

Source. AITraining.jobs Research, Where Human-Data Vendors Are Building, read 18 Oct 2026.

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Method and definitions

The public job boards (Greenhouse and Ashby APIs) of AI labs and human-data vendors, read every day. Every figure is computed by one database query over the window shown, the same query for the live report and for every edition. Each figure states its sample beneath it.

Staff role: A role a vendor posts for its own team; the expert and contractor roles it recruits for are counted in the job-feed reports instead.
Function: The first of the published function patterns a role's title (or team) matches: data acquisition and partnerships, expert supply, expert and contractor roles, research and RL environments, delivery, sales, engineering, corporate.
Window: A reading of every board today; no monthly editions.

What this data cannot tell you

Labs without a public board API (Meta, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Nvidia, Google DeepMind's own careers site) cannot be read, so their hiring is not counted.
An open role is hiring intent, not headcount: some companies keep one evergreen posting per team, others post one per location.
A role counts by its title and team against published patterns; a role described only in its text is not counted.

How the job feeds are read and roles are classified: site methodology. How fresh, complete and consistent the data is, checked every day: data quality and coverage.

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Citation

AITraining.jobs (2026). Where Human-Data Vendors Are Building (live data, 18 Oct 2026 to 18 Oct 2026). https://www.aitraining.run/research/human-data-vendors-hiring (accessed 18 Oct 2026)

BibTeX

@misc{aitrainingjobs_human_data_vendors_hiring_live,
  author = {{AITraining.jobs}},
  title = {Where Human-Data Vendors Are Building (live data, 18 Oct 2026 to 18 Oct 2026)},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://www.aitraining.run/research/human-data-vendors-hiring}},
  note = {Accessed 18 Oct 2026},
}

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