Drug Discovery Scientist — AI Research & Challenge Design

Mercor; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 70,000 - 100,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

Reimbursed Claude Max subscription

Job summary

Mercor in Austin, TX seeks a domain expert to design and evaluate frontier AI research problems for drug discovery. You will craft realistic data rooms grounded in real sources and write a grading document that emphasizes substantive reasoning over stylistic or methodological aspects.

The role requires 20–40 hours per week, work in a browser-based studio, and a Claude Max subscription which is fully reimbursed.

Qualifications

• PhD or equivalent industry track record in mechanistic enzymology or related field.
• Experience designing and evaluating structure-guided peptide, antibody, or fragment-based projects.
• Ability to pose a rigorous, defensible research problem requiring deep reasoning.

Responsibilities

• Design a challenging research problem with a defensible answer based on hidden basins and forcing chains.
• Build a data room from real, source-grounded data with traceable values.
• Write a grading document that scores memo substance and reasoning.
• Validate the framework through verification and calibration.
• Revise the framework in response to reviewer feedback.

Skills

Mechanistic enzymology

Structure-guided design

Fragment-based discovery

Structure-based medicinal chemistry

Education

PhD or equivalent industry track record

Tools

Claude Code

Claude Max

Browser-based studio

Job description

Mercor in Austin, TX seeks a domain expert to design and evaluate frontier AI research problems for drug discovery. You will craft realistic data rooms grounded in real sources and write a grading document that emphasizes substantive reasoning over stylistic or methodological aspects.

The role requires 20–40 hours per week, work in a browser-based studio, and a Claude Max subscription which is fully reimbursed.