Fire & Life Safety Reviewer: Vulcan

What you'll do

Vulcan is a project building evaluation tasks for the construction and property field, and this listing is its fire and life safety track. Each task starts from real inputs (drawings, documents, site photos) and asks for the deliverable a reviewer would actually produce: an egress analysis, a correction list, a plan review decision. You write the task and its correct answer; a second reviewer from your discipline checks it before it is accepted.

The task families named in the ad:

• Egress and life safety plan check, and fire access plan review
• Fire alarm review, from both the design engineer's and the fire marshal's seat
• Sprinkler review from the engineer, fire marshal and property insurer seats
• Hazardous materials control area review
• Fire occupancy video inspection and firestop penetration photo verification
• Review of inspection, testing and maintenance (ITM) reports

The tasks use several seats because the same sprinkler layout reads differently to the engineer who drew it, the marshal approving it and the insurer pricing it, and the tasks are built to capture each perspective.

Who qualifies

• You hold, or recently held, a fire and life safety review seat: fire marshal or fire prevention plan reviewer, fire protection engineer, or sprinkler and alarm designer-reviewer
• One of: fire marshal appointment, NICET Level III or higher, or a PE in fire protection
• 3+ years in that seat (8+ preferred), US-based, working to IBC, IFC and NFPA
• Able to mark up plan sets and read hydraulic calculations and device layouts

The ad is unusually explicit about who is not a fit: firefighters and fire officers without plan review or inspection duties, sprinkler installers without design or review work, alarm technicians who service rather than design, and general safety or OSHA specialists.

What sets strong applicants apart

According to the ad, the difficulty is not quoting code but knowing which occupant load, travel distance or coverage gap tends to slip through. Evidence that you have that judgment: training junior inspectors, writing department correction language or SOPs, doing acceptance testing as well as plan review, or working across several NFPA editions and knowing what changed. Put those in your application if you have them.

What it pays

$45–60 per hour depending on experience, with a stated path to a higher rate as the project scales. Payment is weekly via Stripe or Wise. H-1B and STEM OPT candidates cannot be supported.

Worth knowing

Good:

• Tasks mirror real review work, so there is little translation between your day job and the task
• Peer review by someone in your own discipline, not a generalist
• The ad states a path to a higher rate
• Asynchronous, on your own schedule

Less good:

• $45–60 is modest for PE or NICET III credentials; senior plan reviewers will likely earn more per hour in their day job
• US residence required
• No weekly hours or project length published
• Independent contractor; projects can be extended, shortened or ended early

About this listing

Posted by Mercor as a remote hourly contract restricted to the United States, confirmed open on 24 September 2026. The task list, credentials, exclusions and pay are the ad's own. See Mercor.