Finance Domain Expert — AI Training & Evaluation at Mercor

aitrainer; California, Northern (MO, KY); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Cincinnatus LLC is hiring a senior finance domain expert to join a leading AI lab's GenAI team, focusing on reviewing finance knowledge work, writing instruction specs, and building benchmarks to measure model improvement. This is a W-2 full-time role with the opportunity to be embedded in the lab's extended workforce.

The position is based in the Bay Area, California, with remote day-to-day work and occasional on-site visits as required.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional finance experience at a recognized institution.
• Genuine specialization in at least one core finance discipline.
• Senior individual-contributor or leadership progression with ownership of analysis and decisions.
• Advanced degree and/or CFA/CPA/FRM recognized credential preferred.
• Hands-on working use of large language models in professional work.

Responsibilities

• Data QA and reviews of finance knowledge work tasks.
• Write instruction specs and golden datasets/solutions.
• Design benchmarks and finance-specific evaluation sets.
• Calibrate standards with client researchers and translate tacit judgment into explicit criteria.

Skills

Finance domain expertise

AI fluency

Written communication

Remote collaboration

Education

MBA or MS or PhD in finance/economics

Job description

Join a leading AI lab's cutting-edge GenAI team to be at the core of the AI revolution, where your expertise fuels the development of the most advanced AI models.

Overview

We are hiring a senior finance domain expert to work directly with a leading AI lab's research and program management teams, improving how frontier AI models reason about real financial work.

Your finance expertise is the substance of this role. You will review the quality of finance knowledge work tasks, write the instruction specs and golden solutions that define what "correct" looks like, and build the benchmarks that show whether the model is genuinely improving. We are looking for a practising specialist rather than a generalist.

This is a full-time W-2 employment position with Cincinnatus LLC, with the opportunity to be placed at a leading AI lab as part of their extended workforce. You will be provisioned with client-issued accounts and equipment, and will work inside the client's own tools alongside their research teams.

Location: This role is based in the Bay Area, California. Day-to-day work is remote, but you must live in the Bay Area and be able to come on-site when required. On-site days are expected to be infrequent.

Key Responsibilities

• Data QA and reviews: Vet the quality of finance knowledge work tasks and model outputs — spotting missing behaviors, thin reasoning, flawed assumptions, and answers that read well but would not survive professional scrutiny.
• Instruction specs and golden datasets: Write high-quality instruction specs, produce golden solutions to financial problems, and define new finance tasks that reflect how the work is actually done in practice.
• Benchmarks and domain depth: Design challenging finance tasks and evaluation sets, and help build finance-specific skills and tools together with the research team.
• Calibration: Work with client researchers and specialists in adjacent fields to keep standards consistent, translating tacit financial judgment into explicit, teachable criteria.

Core Qualifications

• Experience: 5+ years of substantive, dedicated professional finance experience at a recognized institution — for example an investment bank, asset manager, private equity or credit fund, Big Four firm, a large corporate finance function, or a financial regulator. Generalist roles that only touch finance peripherally do not count.
• Domain depth: Genuine specialization in at least one core finance discipline, for example corporate finance and FP&A, investment banking and M&A, asset or wealth management, private equity or private credit, quantitative finance and risk management, treasury, or accounting and audit.
• Seniority: Clear progression to a senior individual-contributor or leadership level — for example Vice President, Director, Principal, Managing Director, Portfolio Manager, Controller, or CFO — with real ownership of analysis and decisions.
• Education and credentials: An advanced degree from a strong program (MBA, MS, or PhD in finance, economics, accounting, or a quantitative field) and/or a recognized professional credential such as CFA, CPA, FRM, or an actuarial designation. Strongly preferred.
• AI fluency: Hands‑on working use of large language models in your professional work, and the judgment to tell a well‑reasoned answer from a plausible‑sounding wrong one.
• Availability: Able to commit reliably to 40 hours per week for an initial engagement of 6 months.
• Location: Living in the Bay Area, California and able to come on‑site when required.
• Excellent written communication, and the ability to give precise, well‑structured written feedback.

About Cincinnatus LLC

Cincinnatus LLC is an enterprise staffing company that partners with leading technology companies to source and employ highly skilled professionals for contingent and contract‑based opportunities. Cincinnatus serves as the employer of record for these engagements, providing W-2 employment, payroll, benefits, and compliance, while placing employees directly within client teams to work on high‑impact initiatives.

Roles hired through Cincinnatus are not project‑based or freelance engagements. They are structured, role‑based positions that typically involve part‑time or full‑time commitments, close collaboration with a client's internal teams, and integration into standard enterprise workflows.

Cincinnatus is a legal entity separate from Mercor. While opportunities may be discovered through Mercor's platform, employment, onboarding, payroll, and benefits for these roles are administered by Cincinnatus LLC.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Cincinnatus is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, reproductive health decisions, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, genetic information, political views or activity, or any other legally protected characteristic.

Cincinnatus is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans throughout the job application process.

We consider all qualified applicants without regard to legally protected characteristics and provide reasonable accommodations upon request.