Pros
I have worked for Data Annotation for over a year now and have never had a better job. I have a broad range of high-paying projects available to choose from every day, and I can work on any of them whenever I like for as long as I like. I can't tell you how nice it is never to have to worry about taking a sick day or time for holiday, or being distracted by something unavoidable in the middle of the day. Regarding compensation: you will probably have seen the advertisement of $20/hr as an entry-level minimum and wondered if this is too good to be true and a scam. It is not a scam. If you gain access to projects—and I have heard that gaining initial access is problematic for some people (it was not for me)—then this rate will be what you see for the basic projects. If you ensure your work is consistently high quality, you will quickly start seeing "qualifications" for higher-paying projects; these are essentially little tests of your capability of performing the work of those projects. The better you work, the more challenging and more lucrative projects you will be offered; you really are paid what you are worth, which feels amazing! I have had a few queries that I have needed to pose to Support, including where I am unsure of whether or not I am eligible to submit my time for work I have done. I have always received consistently quick, friendly, helpful responses, including immediate additions to my working time (if I was found to be eligible). I want to give special credit to Lily Jackson, who has been the primary person from whom I have received such consistently excellent support.
Cons
Note: somehow I've made the Cons longer than the Pros, even though I love this job... that might be because none except the first two of these Cons are proper Cons. TL;DR this way of working is pretty unique, and so it has substantially different characteristics from most other jobs, which means that some people with preconceptions taken from more traditional employment might be surprised or even displeased if they took this job. Being new and different is not a con, but such characteristics warrant being mentioned. --- The downside to the incredible flexibility of working for DataAnnotation is that you are technically self-employed and uncontracted, and, this being such an incredibly dynamic and evolving industry, I enter each day with the tiniest bit of relief that the job has not completely evaporated overnight. The only other real downside of this job is the lack of career advancement. There is what I might describe as "micro-advancement", which is the "qualifications" you can take to progressively gain access to more challenging and higher-paying projects. If you are good enough, this will eventually reach a (pretty lucrative) ceiling, during which time your basic position and role has never changed, but the portfolio of projects to which you have access has broadened and deepened immensely. Try putting that on a CV, though. There are no company benefits, no pension contributions - nothing. This is not a criticism, really, because this is simply the nature of self-employment; it just feels worth mentioning because one might expect to have the normal benefits of contracted employment if working for a company. Another factor that I, an introvert, adore, but which others might hate is the isolation of the work. Remoteness is inherent to remote work, obviously. Even the work itself, though, consists of you completing your tasks for your selected project entirely alone. This will really appeal to some people (myself included - I like people, but I like being entirely self-sufficient), but never actually working with another person might be a turn-off for others. There are communal text chat areas where participants in a particular project can communicate, and where Admins for the projects will answer questions about the project, but this is the full extent of the interpersonal connection you will experience while working (at least, at the current time of writing). Yet another "con" which is really more a natural aspect of the work is that there is almost no structure or hierarchy of personnel. I adore not having anyone to report to (do understand, however, that your work will be reviewed, typically by your peers in other projects), but, again, others might find this utter fluidity and the lack of an immediate guiding hand daunting. As mentioned, there are Admins for every project, but their direct involvement with us workers is very offhand, consisting of their answers to our questions when we ask them. Admins will never ask to see your work or give you a performance review or call you in for a meeting (what bliss).