According to Business Insider, AI training companies are paying Wall Street professionals up to $150 per hour to help train their models, with firms like Mercor, Scale AI’s Outlier, and Elon Musk’s xAI actively recruiting finance experts. One job posting from Labelbox-owned Alignerrr offers that top rate for someone with financial planning and wealth management experience, while xAI is paying between $35 and $100 hourly for roles requiring sell-side expertise like investment banking and trading or buy-side experience in private equity and hedge funds. Micro1 is even seeking someone who has been a hedge fund CFO specifically, though compensation details aren’t listed. Most roles are remote and part-time, raising questions about whether current finance employees are using these as side hustles or if laid-off bankers are seeking extra cash. Mercor stands out by offering full-time positions paying between $90,000 and $200,000 for buy-side and sell-side AI tutors.
Why finance expertise costs so much
Here’s the thing about AI training – it’s basically shadowing right now. These models are sitting deskside and learning the ropes like junior employees. But when it comes to wonky finance professions, there’s a huge problem: the real work examples aren’t just sitting out there on public websites. You can’t train an AI to be an investment banker by scraping Reddit posts. The specialized knowledge that makes Wall Street professionals valuable is exactly what makes them expensive to hire as trainers. These companies are essentially paying premium rates for access to institutional knowledge that normally stays behind office doors.
Who actually takes these jobs?
So who’s actually signing up for this work? The companies aren’t exactly transparent about their contractors, but the patterns are telling. Most roles are part-time and remote, which suggests either current finance professionals looking for side income or people who’ve recently left the industry. Outlier’s spokesperson mentioned one contractor who works full-time in finance while doing voice-acting tasks in his free time – so clearly some people are juggling both. Then there’s the Wharton MBA student in Mercor’s promotional video who used his background as a Bank of America investment banker to make ends meet. The real question is: are investment banks okay with their employees training their potential replacements on the side?
The compensation reality check
Now, those $150/hour rates sound impressive until you do the math. For full-time roles, Mercor’s $90,000 to $200,000 range is decent for analyst-level positions but falls short for associates, who typically earn $170,000 to $230,000 base salaries. The part-time gigs might be attractive for extra cash, but they’re not replacing Wall Street compensation. What they might offer is an escape from the brutal hours – one investment banking expert role specifically mentions wanting people with three or more years at top-tier banks like Goldman Sachs. After grinding through 80-hour weeks, training AI from home might sound pretty appealing.
Where this is headed
This feels like a temporary gold rush. Right now, AI companies need human experts to bridge the knowledge gap, but they’re absolutely aiming for a future where the AI doesn’t need hand-holding. They’re essentially paying top dollar to capture institutional knowledge that they can then scale infinitely. The irony is thick – finance professionals are being paid well to train their potential replacements. But for now, if you’ve got that Goldman Sachs experience and want to make some serious side money, the opportunity is there. Just don’t expect it to last forever.
