Materials Science Expert

Mercor; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 83,000 - 165,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Restaurant d'entreprise

Indemnités de stage/alternance

Job summary

Mercor is seeking materials scientists for AI training and evaluation work. This standing listing remains open for matching projects, and new opportunities can begin on short notice. You will be matched to projects such as defining material problems, grading model-generated reasoning, and flagging where a material meets spec.

Rates have ranged from $60 to $120 per hour, depending on scope. A graduate degree in materials science or a related field with research or industrial experience is

Qualifications

• This role requires strong written communication to articulate reasoning and results.
• Ability to work with ambiguous tasks and flag unclear instructions.
• Experience or training in materials science is essential.

Responsibilities

• Match materials scientists in the network to projects for AI training and evaluation.
• Assess model-generated structure–property reasoning and processing history.
• Flag where a material meets specs in theory vs. in service and identify manufacturability issues.

Skills

Clear written communication

Comfort with ambiguity

Explain reasoning clearly

Education

Graduate degree in materials science or related field

Job description

The research teams behind the best-known AI models come to Mercor for materials science judgment they can't generate on their own. Your standards and expertise become the rubric that frontier AI is graded against.

This is a standing listing for materials scientists who want AI training and evaluation work, not a specific job opening. It stays open whether or not a matching project is running this week.

New projects start on short notice, so instead of posting and pulling a listing each time, we keep one open per field and draw from it when one begins.

What the work looks like

We match materials scientists in the network to projects like:

• Writing a materials problem from work you have done, with the system, the processing history, and the property target, plus the reference answer a model's attempt gets graded against

• Grading model-written structure-property reasoning: whether the microstructure explains the property, whether the characterization supports the claim, whether the processing window is realistic

• Flagging where a model's proposed material meets the spec on paper and fails in service, given fatigue, corrosion, thermal cycling, or what can actually be manufactured

Past rates have run $60 to $120 an hour, set per project by scope and depth.

What we're looking for

• A graduate degree in materials science or a related field, with research or industrial experience

• Clear written communication, since most of the work involves explaining your reasoning

• Comfort with ambiguous tasks, and willingness to flag unclear instructions

Where you trained matters less than whether you processed and characterized the material yourself, recently enough to explain the calls you made.

What to expect

This listing does not accept or reject candidates, so you will not get a decision on it. We reach out when a project matches your background. Depending on what our clients are running, that can be within a week or several months.

Finishing the domain expert interview and joining every network you qualify for both improve your odds of being matched. You only need to sign up once to be eligible across all of them.