Applied Physics Benchmark Specialist

Confidential; United States; Remote; USD 55,000 - 96,000; Part time

Job summary

Zekai seeks expert physicists to author and review high-quality academic assessment content for an AI research initiative. You will write and verify rigorous multiple-choice questions across core physics domains, evaluate solution quality, and help establish gold-standard benchmarks used to advance AI capabilities.

You will be assigned one of two task types: Question Authoring — create original, challenging questions and rate their difficulty; Question Verification — review pre-written questions

Qualifications

• PhD or doctoral candidate in Physics or closely related field
• Strong command of graduate-level physics concepts and mathematical formalism
• Excellent written English and ability to express complex ideas clearly and concisely

Responsibilities

• Author original physics questions that test deep conceptual understanding
• Ensure questions are unambiguous, self-contained, and precisely defined
• Rate each question's difficulty: Medium, Hard, or Expert
• Provide 1 correct answer and 9 plausible but subtly incorrect alternatives
• Write step-by-step Chain-of-Thought solutions with clear intermediate steps in markdown format
• Supply 1–5 academic references per question
• For verification tasks: flag issues with clarity, completeness, precision, or solvability and justify edits

Job description

Role Overview

We are seeking expert physicists to author and review high-quality academic assessment content for an AI research initiative. You will write and verify rigorous multiple-choice questions across core physics domains, evaluate solution quality, and help establish gold-standard benchmarks used to advance AI capabilities.

You will be assigned one of two task types:

• Question Authoring — Create original, challenging multiple-choice questions in your area of physics expertise, rate their difficulty, and submit them for review.

• Question Verification — Review pre-written questions for accuracy, clarity, and rigor. Edit where needed, rate difficulty, and document any changes made.

Physics Domains Covered

Semiconductor Physics, Nanoelectronics & Spintronics, Photonics, Quantum Optics & Ultrafast, Quantum Sensing & Metrology, Plasma Physics & Fusion Energy, Nonlinear Dynamics & Turbulence, Geophysics & Reservoir Simulation.

Key Responsibilities

• Author original physics questions that test deep conceptual understanding, not surface-level recall

• Ensure questions are unambiguous, self-contained, and precisely defined — all necessary information must be in the problem statement

• Rate each question's difficulty: Medium (intro undergraduate), Hard (advanced undergraduate), or Expert (post-graduate and above)

• Provide 1 correct answer and 9 plausible but subtly incorrect alternatives that challenge expert-level solvers

• Write step-by-step Chain-of-Thought solutions with clear, concise intermediate steps in markdown format

• Supply 1–5 academic references per question from reputable sources (peer-reviewed journals, university repositories)

• For verification tasks: flag issues with clarity, completeness, precision, or solvability and justify any edits made

Ideal Qualifications

• PhD or doctoral candidate in Physics, Applied Physics, Astrophysics, or a closely related field

• Master's degree considered for candidates with exceptional depth in a specific subdomain

• Strong command of graduate-level physics concepts and mathematical formalism

• Experience with rigorous academic problem design or physics olympiad writing is a strong plus

• Excellent written English and ability to express complex ideas clearly and concisely

More About the Opportunity

• Expected commitment: 10+ hours/week

• Asynchronous, fully remote work

This is a 100% remote contract role. Applicants must be located in: United States.