Pros
I was paid hourly, with opportunity for overtime pay. It's like being a contractor but with health benefits.
Cons
I really, really wanted to like Surge AI. Unfortunately, I would not recommend anyone in my network to work at this company. I was hired through a recruiter reaching out, who gave me a great idea of what Surge AI is, how I can work remotely from anywhere (except China), and the ability to work with top performing LLM companies. I had a lot of questions, and was met with vague answers, but I was sold on an idea. I wasn't told that once I started, I would be working as a data annotator for the first four weeks (on dataannotation.tech). I didn't have a meeting with anyone for the first two weeks, no matter how much I reached out to anyone to provide some clarity on what I signed up for. I was also not told that I would be evaluated based off my ability to be an annotator. The communication and transparency is worse than any company I've ever been at, and ultimately I was laid off, during the onboarding process, without any warning or constructive feedback, even though I was told through contract and my recruiter that a layoff would be precedented with one. I was paid to work as a data annotator, which was a waste of my time and their money. A startup is a startup - risky, and potentially high reward. But the way to do it is not through poor communication and having every new employee watching their backs out of fear.
