ML Research Engineer - PhD - AI Trainer
Mercor
Job Description
Job DescriptionJob DescriptionAbout the jobMercor connects elite creative and technical talent with leading AI research labs. Headquartered in San Francisco, our investors include Benchmark, General Catalyst, Peter Thiel, Adam D'Angelo, Larry Summers, and Jack Dorsey.Position: Human Baseliner for Open-Ended ML Research Tasks
Type: Contract
Compensation: $75–$90/hour
Location: Remote
Commitment: 20+ hours/weekRole ResponsibilitiesAttempt open-ended machine learning research tasks under a fixed time and compute budget.Work independently in a sandboxed Linux environment with internet access.Use preferred tools, including IDEs and AI coding assistants like Cursor, Claude Code, and ChatGPT.Record full working sessions via screen recording.Complete pre-task and post-task questionnaires.Submit final work product, screen recording, and completed questionnaires for evaluation.QualificationsMust-Have3+ years of machine learning experience. Time in a PhD program counts.Attended a top-100 university or worked at FAANG or a comparable company.Experience with PyTorch, JAX, or TensorFlow.Deep expertise in at least one focus area: pretraining, PPO, reward shaping, fine-tuning, LoRA, RLHF, architecture design, contrastive training, generative modeling, multilingual experience, or data pipelines.Required Domain ExpertisePractical experience in Pretraining, Reinforcement learning, Post-training, Dataset curation, or Model architecture.LogisticsOne baseline attempt per contractor per task.Each task may only be attempted once.All work is confidential and covered by NDA.Compute and environment are provided; no personal GPU required.Application Process (Takes 20–30 mins to complete)Upload resumeAI interview based on your resumeSubmit formResources & SupportFor details about the interview process and platform information, please check: https://talent.docs.mercor.com/welcomeFor any help or support, reach out to: support@mercor.comPS: Our team reviews applications daily. Please complete your AI interview and application steps to be considered for this opportunity.
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