Backend Developer - Fully Remote | Upto $85/hr

mercor; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; CAD 157,000 - 177,000; Full time

Job summary

Mercor is seeking a Backend Engineer (Coding Agent Experience) for a contract, remote position. You will use frontier AI coding agents to complete and evaluate complex engineering tasks and review model-generated code for quality and performance.

Ideal candidates have 2+ years in backend engineering, experience building APIs or distributed systems, and familiarity with AI coding tools. You will work asynchronously to deliver high-quality backend solutions.

Qualifications

• 2+ years of backend engineering experience.
• Experience building APIs, distributed systems, microservices, backend platforms, or databases.
• Regular use of AI coding agents such as Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, Windsurf, Gemini CLI, or similar tools.

Responsibilities

• Use frontier AI coding agents to complete and evaluate complex engineering tasks.
• Review model-generated code for correctness, quality, maintainability, and performance.
• Identify bugs, edge cases, and failure modes in model outputs.
• Compare outputs from multiple frontier models and assess their strengths and weaknesses.
• Apply professional engineering judgment to realistic backend engineering scenarios.
• Work independently and asynchronously to meet deadlines while improving AI model performance.

Job description

About the job

Mercor connects elite creative and technical talent with leading AI research labs. Headquartered in San Francisco, our investors include Benchmark , General Catalyst , Peter Thiel , Adam D'Angelo , Larry Summers , and Jack Dorsey . Position: Backend Engineer (Coding Agent Experience) Type: Contract Compensation: $85/hour Location: Remote Role

Role Responsibilities

• Use frontier AI coding agents to complete and evaluate complex engineering tasks.
• Review model-generated code for correctness, quality, maintainability, and performance.
• Identify bugs, edge cases, and failure modes in model outputs.
• Compare outputs from multiple frontier models and assess their strengths and weaknesses.
• Apply professional engineering judgment to realistic backend engineering scenarios.
• Work independently and asynchronously to meet deadlines while improving AI model performance.

Qualifications

• 2+ years of professional backend engineering experience.
• Experience building APIs , distributed systems, microservices, backend platforms, or databases.
• Regular use of AI coding agents such as Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, Windsurf, Gemini CLI, or similar tools.
• Ability to evaluate model-generated code and identify bugs, edge cases, and architectural tradeoffs.

Preferred

• Experience working on large-scale production systems.

Compensation & Legal

• $400 per accepted task.
• Typical tasks take approximately 1–3 hours after ramp-up.
• No fixed task limits.
• Compensation is tied to accepted work.