Drug Discovery Scientist - PhD - AI Trainer

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

About the role

This is an evaluation framework for frontier AI models in drug research and development. Domain experts write realistic research problems wrapped around messy evidence worlds. The model works offline in a sandbox with open-source scientific tooling, receiving incomplete, indirect and sometimes misleading data, and must reach a defensible conclusion. The answer is present in the evidence but never stated.

Your job is to build a research problem so realistic and well-constructed that the model has to genuinely reason to solve it — it can't pattern-match or look the answer up.

What you'll deliver

Three things per task: the prompt, the data room, and the grading document.

1. Design the challenge — identify the hidden basin and the forcing chain that makes one conclusion inevitable.

2. Build the world — assemble a data room from real, source‑grounded data. Every decisive value traces to a real source.

3. Write the grader — a grading document that scores a submitted memo on substance, not style or method.

4. Validate it — run verification and calibration before submission.

5. Revise it — you own the rework if a reviewer requests changes.

You are the final authority on every scientific and difficulty question in your task.

Who we're looking for

• Working expertise in mechanistic enzymology, structure‑guided peptide or antibody design, fragment‑based discovery, or structure‑based medicinal chemistry — PhD or equivalent industry track record.

• You can pose a problem whose answer you can defend rigorously, but which a strong solver cannot shortcut.

• Comfortable judging reasoning quality, not just final answers.

Commitment

Minimum 20 hours per week, up to 40.

Tooling

Work happens in a browser‑based studio plus Claude Code. A Claude Max subscription is required and is fully reimbursed.