AI Benchmark Designer: Math PhD & Trainer

Obsidian; Los Angeles (CA); On-site; USD 83,000 - 124,000; Full time

Job summary

Mercor is hiring PhD and Master’s scientists to author AI evaluation tasks (Sci Code). You will craft original, executable research problems that current frontier models cannot solve.

Applicants should have a PhD in mathematics or related fields and demonstrated depth in at least two subdomains, plus proficiency in Python or R for scientific computing. Familiarity with Docker and Git/GitHub workflows is required. This engagement runs for 6 weeks, part-time (20+ hours/week), with immediate start.

Qualifications

• PhD in mathematics, applied mathematics, computational mathematics, or a closely related field.
• Demonstrated depth in at least two of: numerical linear algebra, computational mechanics, computational finance.
• Working proficiency in Python or R for scientific computing.
• Comfortable with Git/GitHub and running code in Docker — authoring runs through a pull-request workflow with automated quality checks.

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 or R for scientific computing

Git/GitHub

Education

PhD in mathematics / related

Tools

Docker

Job description

Mercor is hiring PhD and Master’s scientists to author AI evaluation tasks (Sci Code). You will craft original, executable research problems that current frontier models cannot solve.

Applicants should have a PhD in mathematics or related fields and demonstrated depth in at least two subdomains, plus proficiency in Python or R for scientific computing. Familiarity with Docker and Git/GitHub workflows is required. This engagement runs for 6 weeks, part-time (20+ hours/week), with immediate start.