Remote Research Physics Expert - Part-Time Contract

mercor

San Francisco (CA)

Hybrid

GBP 83,000 - 141,000

Part time

14 days+

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Job summary

Mercor connects elite creative and technical talent with leading AI research labs. This remote contract position (~10 hours/week) seeks a Research Physics Expert to tackle challenging physics problems with verifiable derivations, code, and peer-reviewed references.

Applicants should hold a PhD or postdoc in the relevant subfield, have publications, and be fluent in LaTeX, Python, Jupyter, and SymPy. Strong English writing is required for international collaboration.

Qualifications

PhD or postdoc in the relevant subfield (senior PhD student minimum).
Postdoc or junior professor in the relevant subfield (PhD minimum).
Full professor or industry research PI in the relevant subfield (senior postdoc or junior professor minimum).
Hands-on familiarity with at least two canonical methods of the target subfield, demonstrable through publications.
3-5 representative publications (arXiv ID or DOI), ideally within the last ~5 years and in the target subfield.
Working proficiency with LaTeX, Python, Jupyter, and SymPy.
Strong written English (B2/C1/C2 minimum; native or near-native preferred).

Responsibilities

Solve research-level physics challenges end-to-end with verifiable derivations, code, and peer-reviewed references.
Decompose challenges into standalone checkpoint sub-problems requiring genuine physical reasoning.
Author Python answer templates with auto-grading functions for symbolic or numerical answers.
Audit submitted solutions for correctness, scope, and method soundness; deliver actionable feedback across iterations.
Adjudicate between parallel solver attempts and decide which solution becomes the golden reference.
Document chain-of-thought reasoning, error tolerances, equivalent symbolic forms, and verification test cases.