Physics PhD — AI Benchmark Scientist

Mercor; Greater London; On-site; GBP 39,000 - 67,000; Part time

Job summary

Mercor seeks PhD and Master's scientists to author AI evaluation tasks (Sci Code) for a new benchmark in scientific computing. You will craft original, executable research problems that frontier models cannot solve today.

You will source material from papers, datasets, or your own scenarios, write prompts, and build grading criteria. The role involves calibrating tasks against frontier models, with a 6-week, part-time commitment (20+ hours/week) and immediate start.

Qualifications

• PhD in physics, applied physics, or closely related field.
• Depth in at least two subdomains: condensed matter, optics, quantum information/computing, computational physics, astrophysics, or particle physics.
• Proficiency in Python, R, or similar language for scientific computing.
• Familiarity with Git/GitHub and Docker workflows.

Responsibilities

• Source your own material: a published paper, a Kaggle dataset, an open-source repository, or a scenario you design.
• Write scientific prompts based on the input.
• Build the grading criteria that define a correct answer.
• Calibrate against frontier models — a task ships only when strong models fail it more often than they succeed.

Skills

Python

R

Scientific computing

Education

PhD in physics or closely related field

Tools

Git/GitHub

Docker

Job description

Mercor seeks PhD and Master's scientists to author AI evaluation tasks (Sci Code) for a new benchmark in scientific computing. You will craft original, executable research problems that frontier models cannot solve today.

You will source material from papers, datasets, or your own scenarios, write prompts, and build grading criteria. The role involves calibrating tasks against frontier models, with a 6-week, part-time commitment (20+ hours/week) and immediate start.