Biochemistry PhD — Remote Research Engineer 6-Week Contract

Mercor; Sydney; Remote; AUD 83,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

Mercor is seeking a Biology PhD coding expert for a remote contract. You will source datasets from papers and open repositories, write scientific prompts, and develop grading criteria to challenge frontier models.

You will use Python or R for scientific computing, collaborate via Git/GitHub and Docker, and work independently to meet tight deadlines over a 6 week period with a 20+ hour weekly commitment. Immediate start preferred; prior publications or research software experience are a plus.

Qualifications

• PhD in biology or closely related field.
• Depth in at least two subdomains: ecology, biochemistry, genetics.
• Proficiency in Python, R, or another relevant programming language.
• Comfortable with Git/GitHub and Docker.

Responsibilities

• Source material from published papers, Kaggle datasets, or open-source repositories to create research problems.
• Write scientific prompts and develop grading criteria for correct answers.
• Calibrate tasks against frontier models, ensuring strong models fail more often than they succeed.
• Utilize Python, R, or other programming languages for scientific computing.
• Work with Git/GitHub and Docker for code execution and quality checks.
• Collaborate asynchronously and independently to meet deadlines and improve AI model performance.

Skills

Python

R

Education

PhD in biology or related field

Tools

Git/GitHub

Docker

Job description

Mercor is seeking a Biology PhD coding expert for a remote contract. You will source datasets from papers and open repositories, write scientific prompts, and develop grading criteria to challenge frontier models.

You will use Python or R for scientific computing, collaborate via Git/GitHub and Docker, and work independently to meet tight deadlines over a 6 week period with a 20+ hour weekly commitment. Immediate start preferred; prior publications or research software experience are a plus.