C Software Developer - Fully Remote | Upto $130/task Task based

mercor; United States; Remote; USD 165,000 - 193,000; Part time

Job summary

Mercor seeks a Software Engineer (C) for a contract role, working remotely with U.S., India, and Nigeria-based leads. You will select and understand C repository tasks, rewrite questions for frontier agents, and ensure rigorous rubrics and validation in Mercor Studio.

Onboarding requires identity verification, background checks, and compliance steps. Strong English writing is essential for crafting questions and rubrics, and experience navigating large C codebases is a must.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of professional software engineering experience with substantial production C .
• Ability to navigate large, unfamiliar C codebases and explain runtime behavior.
• Comfort with preprocessor-heavy builds , platform conditionals, and manual memory management.
• Experience with databases, cryptography, networking protocols, or systems programming.
• Ability to use debuggers , sanitizers , tracing, and profilers .
• Precise written English for crafting questions and rubrics.

Responsibilities

• Select tasks from a pre-validated pool of C repositories , each with an engineering question and a golden solution.
• Explore the repository to understand the subsystem, including relevant PR or issue history.
• Rewrite task questions to challenge frontier coding agents while ensuring clarity and fairness.
• Adjust rubrics and foils to reward correct reasoning and reject incorrect answers.
• Run the full validation loop in Mercor Studio and iterate until every stage passes.
• Document work in the task README and address reviewer feedback on returned tasks.

Skills

C language

Codebase navigation

Memory management

Debugging tools

Tools

Debuggers

Sanitizers

Profilers

Tracing

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: Software Engineer, C - Codebase Q&A. Type: Contract. Compensation: $130 per approved task. Location: Remote.

Role Responsibilities

• Select tasks from a pre-validated pool of C repositories , each with an engineering question and a golden solution.
• Explore the repository to understand the subsystem, including relevant PR or issue history.
• Rewrite task questions to challenge frontier coding agents while ensuring clarity and fairness.
• Adjust rubrics and foils to reward correct reasoning and reject incorrect answers.
• Run the full validation loop in Mercor Studio and iterate until every stage passes.
• Document work in the task README and address reviewer feedback on returned tasks.

Qualifications Must-Have

• 3+ years of professional software engineering experience with substantial production C .
• Ability to navigate large, unfamiliar C codebases and explain runtime behavior.
• Comfort with preprocessor-heavy builds , platform conditionals, and manual memory management.
• Experience with databases, cryptography, networking protocols, or systems programming.
• Ability to use debuggers , sanitizers , tracing, and profilers .
• Precise written English for crafting questions and rubrics.

Working Details

• Fully remote and asynchronous work with team leads across US, India, and Nigeria.
• Work is performed in Mercor Studio ; time tracked with Insightful and access provisioned through Okta .
• Onboarding requires identity verification, a background check, signed Terms of Work and CIIAA, a tax form, and passing a short calibration quiz.