Nonproliferation Analyst

Mercor; India; Remote; INR 8,408,000 - 9,701,000; Part time

Job summary

Mercor is assembling a panel of nuclear materials and safeguards experts to red-team frontier AI models. The goal is to test whether a model can correctly judge the misuse potential of a technical request—answering legitimate questions fully while refusing genuinely dangerous ones.

You will write challenging prompts, evaluate responses, and draft the reference answer with the reasoning. This contract role emphasizes writing quality and clear justifications for each decision.

Qualifications

• We’re looking for people who have worked proliferation questions professionally—export control, treaty implementation, or programme analysis.
• You can distinguish a routine professional question from one that’s fishing for something else, and can explain it clearly.
• Prior technical writing or expert witness experience is a strong signal.

Responsibilities

• Write challenging single-turn prompts in your domain, labeled benign, dual-use, and adversarial.
• Evaluate model responses against a policy standard and judge whether each is handled correctly.
• Write the reference answer and the technical reasoning for why.

Skills

Export control licensing

Classification/enforcement

Treaty implementation

Proliferation pathway analysis

Sanctions analysis

Open-source analysis

Red-team experience

Job description

Nonproliferation Analyst

Company: Mercor

Compensation: $65-$75 per task

Commitment: Contract

Location: Remote

Referral Reward: Earn up to $250 per successful referral

Referral Link: https://t.mercor.com/wV8dG

About the work

Mercor is assembling a panel of nuclear materials and safeguards experts to red‑team frontier AI models. The goal is to test whether a model can correctly judge the misuse potential of a technical request — answering legitimate questions fully while refusing genuinely dangerous ones.

You will:

• Write challenging single-turn prompts in your domain, labelled across three levels: benign, dual-use, and adversarial.
• Evaluate the responses that come back against a defined policy standard, and judge whether each was handled correctly.
• Write the reference answer — what a correct response looks like, and the technical reasoning for why.

This domain lives on the dual-use line more than most. The same control list that stops a shipment tells a procurement agent what to avoid declaring; the same pathway analysis that informs policy is a roadmap read from the other direction. A model that refuses a routine export‑classification question is failing as badly as one that answers a question it shouldn't. Drawing that line reliably is why we need practitioners rather than generalists.

Background, we’re looking for

We’re looking for people who have worked proliferation questions professionally — export control, treaty implementation, or programme analysis — and who can tell a compliance question from a circumvention question. What matters most is being able to tell a routine professional question from one that’s fishing for something else: the same control list that blocks a transfer also names what to route around.

Examples of relevant backgrounds (ideally with red‑team experience):

• Export control licensing, classification or enforcement — dual‑use lists, catch‑all controls, end‑user screening
• Treaty and agreement implementation — NPT, CTBT, safeguards agreements, bilateral cooperation agreements
• Proliferation pathway and programme analysis at a laboratory, agency, ministry or research institute
• Sanctions, procurement network or illicit trade analysis
• Open‑source and technical analysis of nuclear programmes

What this role demands beyond technical depth

This is writing‑intensive work. Every judgment you make needs a written rationale that a non‑specialist can follow. Prior technical writing, published research, or expert witness experience is a strong signal; please include a sample or link. You will also be reading and writing about misuse scenarios in your field for sustained periods. We brief experts on this in advance, and you can pause or step away at any point without penalty.

Before you apply

Your work here will not involve, and must not draw on, classified or export‑controlled information, or anything covered by an NDA or prepublication review obligation. If you hold such obligations you may still be a good fit; tell us in your application and we will scope the work accordingly.

We consider all qualified applicants without regard to legally protected characteristics and provide reasonable accommodations upon request.