How to apply to Datacurve (Shipd)

Who can join

• Be at least 18 and legally able to enter a binding agreement. Shipd's Contributor Terms make you an independent contractor, responsible for your own taxes, not an employee.
• One account, in your own name. The terms forbid a second active account without Shipd's written consent, impersonation, and selling or transferring an account, and let Shipd suspend or close an account at its discretion.
• Not be located in, a national of or ordinarily resident in a country under a comprehensive US embargo, and not be on a US, EU or UN restricted-party list. Shipd may monitor IP addresses and detect VPNs, and you agree not to get around this.
• An identity check and tax documentation before you are paid. The terms make payment conditional on both, and the Payouts page asks for a passport, driver's license or ID card plus a selfie.
• A way to be paid: a Stripe payout account for your payout country, or, where Shipd offers it, a bank account that Wise can pay in one of the 44 currencies its Payouts page lists (from US dollars, euros and pounds to Indian rupees, Nigerian naira and Philippine pesos).
• Real engineering skill. Shipd's homepage pitches to top open-source contributors, Kaggle grandmasters and competitive programmers (Codeforces, LeetCode, ICPC), while saying there is something for every skill level.

Step by step

1. 1

   Create an account at shipd.ai

   Start from Get Started on shipd.ai. Its sign-up page says you solve challenges and create problems, and are paid for every approved submission. Registering means accepting its Contributor Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

2. 2

   Set up your profile

   The welcome screen asks for your first and last name, country, occupation, company or institution, your GitHub and LinkedIn (a username or the full profile address), a resume (PDF or Word, up to 10 MB), and who referred you, if anyone.

3. 3

   Add a resume, even though you can skip it

   If you submit without one, Shipd warns that a resume helps it match you to the right quests faster, including new quests as they launch, and that without one your first-quest access may be delayed while it verifies your background through other channels.

4. 4

   Wait to be invited to a quest

   Each project on Shipd is a quest in one field: Mars (software engineering: GitHub issues, features and bugs), Eris (machine learning competitions), Monte (data science and numerical problems) and Explore (other STEM fields). New quests launch every month, an account is notified when projects match your skills, and for each project Shipd invites its top contributors.

5. 5

   Join with an invite code if someone sends you one

   A valid invite names its quest and says joining adds it to your quests. A code that was already used or turned off shows "This invite isn't valid"; Shipd's advice is to ask the person who sent it for a new one.

6. 6

   Pick a quest and submit your work

   Your home page sets out the loop: pick a quest that matches your skills, solve problems and submit your work for review by the team, and earn money for every approved submission. Each submission shows as Submitted, In Review, Needs Revision, Approved, Rejected or Completed.

7. 7

   Verify your identity and connect a payout method

   On the Payouts page, choose your payout country and connect a Stripe payout account, or, where Shipd offers it, link a bank account for transfers through Wise (your bank details go straight to Wise and are not stored on Shipd). Identity verification is required to receive payouts.

8. 8

   Get paid in the weekly run

   Approved rewards queue up and are paid weekly: the batch locks on Mondays at 00:00 UTC and pays on Wednesdays at 00:00 UTC. Each reward shows as Pending, Processing, On hold (skipped by payout runs until released), Paid, Failed or Revoked.

Tips to get accepted

• Upload a resume at sign-up. Shipd says it matches you to the right quests faster, and that without one your first-quest access may be delayed.
• Verify your identity and connect Stripe (or Wise) before your first approved submission: identity verification is required to receive payouts, and the check takes a passport, driver's license or ID card plus a selfie.
• If you set a maximum per payout, keep it above your oldest queued reward: Shipd warns that otherwise nothing is paid until you raise it.
• Choose your payout method with care: changes are limited to once every 30 days and pause while a payout is in flight, and updating your bank details counts as that change.
• Work out your hourly rate before you commit: a recruiting pitch quoted on Hacker News in September 2026 offered $150 to $350 a task, with tasks averaging 3 to 5 hours to submit, which is roughly $30 to $117 an hour.
• Keep quest content to yourself: the terms forbid sharing challenge prompts or scoring criteria, recruiting other contributors to work outside the platform, and using scripts, bots or scrapers.
• Do not use a VPN: Shipd may detect VPNs and monitor IP addresses for sanctions compliance, and it can withhold or reverse pay where it suspects a sanctions problem.
• Do not submit code you do not own: you assign all rights in your work to Shipd as you submit it, and anything you built earlier that you include is licensed to it for good.
• For questions, Shipd's homepage links its Discord community and its contact address, team@shipd.ai.