Drug Discovery Scientist - PhD

Mercor; Greater London; Remote; GBP 65,000 - 90,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

Claude Max subscription reimbursement

Flexible schedule

Job summary

Mercor is seeking a researcher to design realistic evaluation prompts for frontier AI models in drug discovery. You will craft problems that force rigorous reasoning and defendable conclusions, anchored in real data sources.

From your domain expertise in mechanistic enzymology or structure-based design, you will assemble a data room, define deciders for grading, and iteratively validate and revise the framework. This role is remote in the UK with a flexible 20–40 hour weekly commitment.

Qualifications

• PhD or equivalent industry track record in relevant field.
• Ability to pose a problem whose answer is defendable and rigorously argued.
• Comfort judging reasoning quality, not just final answers.

Responsibilities

• Design the challenge — identify the hidden basin and the forcing chain.
• Build the world — assemble a data room from real, source-grounded data.
• Write the grader — create a grading document that scores a memo on substance.
• Validate it — run verification and calibration before submission.
• Revise it — own the rework if changes are requested.

Skills

Mechanistic enzymology

Structure-guided design

Peptide/antibody design

Fragment-based discovery

Medicinal chemistry

Education

PhD or equivalent industry track record

Tools

Claude Code

Browser-based studio

Job description

About the role

This is an evaluation framework for frontier AI models in drug research and development. Domain experts write realistic research problems wrapped around messy evidence worlds. The model works offline in a sandbox with open-source scientific tooling, receiving incomplete, indirect and sometimes misleading data, and must reach a defensible conclusion. The answer is present in the evidence but never stated.

Your job is to build a research problem so realistic and well-constructed that the model has to genuinely reason to solve it — it can't pattern-match or look the answer up.

What you'll deliver

Three things per task: the prompt, the data room, and the grading document.

1. Design the challenge — identify the hidden basin and the forcing chain that makes one conclusion inevitable.

2. Build the world — assemble a data room from real, source-grounded data. Every decisive value traces to a real source.

3. Write the grader — a grading document that scores a submitted memo on substance, not style or method.

4. Validate it — run verification and calibration before submission.

5. Revise it — you own the rework if a reviewer requests changes.

You are the final authority on every scientific and difficulty question in your task.

Who we're looking for

• Working expertise in mechanistic enzymology, structure-guided peptide or antibody design, fragment-based discovery, or structure-based medicinal chemistry — PhD or equivalent industry track record.

• You can pose a problem whose answer you can defend rigorously, but which a strong solver cannot shortcut.

• Comfortable judging reasoning quality, not just final answers.

Commitment

Minimum 20 hours per week, up to 40.

Tooling

Work happens in a browser-based studio plus Claude Code. A Claude Max subscription is required and is fully reimbursed.