What the work actually involves

You write prompts in Vietnamese that probe how a model behaves around sensitive material — self-harm, extremism, medical and legal misinformation, fraud, dual-use technical content — and then classify prompts and conversations against a structured guideline document. The guidelines are detailed, they change between batches, and most of the difficulty sits in edge cases: a phrasing that is benign in Hanoi slang but reads as a solicitation in translation, an escalation over three turns where no single turn is disallowed, a request that is legitimate for a nurse and not for an anonymous user. Every classification comes with a written rationale in English, and those rationales are what reviewers actually grade you on.

Expect real Vietnamese-specific reasoning, not translation work. Regional register differences (Northern, Central, Southern), diacritic-stripped writing, teencode and homophone substitution, and code-switching with English are all common ways a prompt slips past a filter. The people who do well here notice when the Vietnamese carries an implication that vanishes when you read it in English.

What the screen looks for

Mercor's process is AI-led: a resume parse, then a recorded conversational interview with follow-ups that push on whatever you claim. For this role the probes concentrate on genuine Vietnamese fluency under unscripted speech, your ability to explain a borderline judgment in clear written English, and whether you have a stable policy for dual-use information rather than instinct. A bachelor's degree completed or in progress is stated as a requirement. Trust and safety, moderation, grading, or red-teaming experience is a plus and worth naming concretely if you have it.

Logistics

  • Fully remote and largely asynchronous; work is claimed from a queue.
  • Roughly 7 hours per week, part-time, immediate start.
  • Observed band is $18–22/hr — a rate seen on comparable Mercor listings, not a guarantee.
  • Based in Vietnam or Southeast Asia is preferred but explicitly not required.
  • Batch volume fluctuates; treat this as supplemental income rather than a stable weekly total.