AI Evaluation Engineer (Python, QA or Security)

Mindrift; New York (NY); On-site; USD 41,000 - 69,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible schedule

Project-based work

Job summary

Mindrift is building a dataset to evaluate AI coding agents by creating realistic developer environments, tasks, and tests. You will guide and evaluate the agent’s work, ensuring the tasks have valid multiple solutions and fair criteria.

This contract-based role offers up to $50/hr, with ~20 hours per task and flexible scheduling, requiring 5+ years in software development with a core stack including Python, FastAPI, React, Docker, Postgres, Kafka, Redis and testing experience.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in software development with a strong backend/frontend track record.
• Experience building or evaluating development environments and tests.
• Ability to design tasks with multiple valid solutions and clear evaluation criteria.

Responsibilities

• Create realistic developer environments and contexts for AI evaluation.
• Design tasks, define success criteria, and ensure solvability for AI agents.
• Write tests that validate agent solutions across valid approaches.
• Iterate on tasks based on QA feedback to keep evaluations fair and robust.

Skills

Python

FastAPI

JavaScript/TypeScript

React

Docker

Postgres

Kafka

Redis

Testing

Job description

Mindrift connects specialists with project-based AI opportunities for leading tech companies, focused on testing, evaluating, and improving AI systems. Participation is project-based, not permanent employment.

What this opportunity involves

We're building a dataset to evaluate AI coding agents - how well a model handles real-world developer tasks.

You’ll create challenging tasks and evaluation criteria within realistic simulated environments:

• Build realistic developer environments - a virtual company with codebase, infrastructure, and context (tickets, docs, conversations) that forms a believable development history
• Design tasks from intermediate states of these environments - craft the prompt, define what "solved" means, and ensure the task is solvable by an AI agent
• Write tests that verify agent solutions - accept all valid approaches and reject incorrect ones, neither too strict nor too lenient
• Iterate on tasks and tests based on QA feedback - review agent solutions, analyze failures, and refine until the evaluation is fair and robust

What this is NOT

• Not data labeling
• Not prompt engineering
• Not writing code from scratch - the agent writes most of the code; you guide and evaluate

What we look for

• 5+ years in software development
• Core stack: Python (FastAPI), JavaScript/TypeScript (React), Docker, Postgres, Kafka, Redis
• Experience writing tests (functional, integration)
• English proficiency - B2+

Why this is hard

Frontier models are already good at coding. Creating a task that genuinely challenges the best models is non‑trivial. You need to deeply understand where models fail and what scenarios reveal the difference between a good and a bad solution. Tasks have many valid solutions - writing tests that accept all correct solutions and reject incorrect ones is harder than it sounds.

Compensation

Up to $50/hr equivalent, depending on level and pace. Tasks are estimated at ~20 hours each; you set your own schedule.