Senior Python Engineer - AI Coding Agent Evaluation (Freelance)

Socket.dev; Iowa (LA); Hybrid; USD 83,000 - 276,000; Full time

Job summary

Mindrift engages in project-based AI evaluation, designing tasks that simulate real developer environments with codebases, infrastructure, and context. You will define what counts as a solution and write tests to verify agent submissions, iterating based on QA feedback.

This is a flexible, contract-like role, not permanent employment, with compensation per accepted task and rates up to $200 per hour. We seek engineers with 8+ years of software experience in Python (FastAPI), TypeScript/React,

Qualifications

• 8+ years in software development.
• Core stack: Python (FastAPI), JavaScript/TypeScript (React), Docker, Postgres, Kafka, Redis.
• Experience writing tests (functional, integration).
• English proficiency - B2+

Responsibilities

• Create challenging tasks and evaluation criteria within realistic simulated environments.
• Build realistic developer environments with codebases, infrastructure, and context.
• Design tasks from intermediate states of these environments and craft what counts as solved.
• Write tests that verify agent solutions, accepting all valid approaches and rejecting incorrect ones.
• Iterate on tasks and tests based on QA feedback to ensure fairness and robustness.

Skills

Python

TypeScript

React

Docker

Postgres

Kafka

Redis

Testing

English proficiency

Tools

FastAPI

Job description

Mindrift connects specialists with project-based AI opportunities for leading tech companies, focused on testing, evaluating, and improving AI systems. Participation is project-based, not permanent employment.

What this opportunity involves

• We're building a dataset to evaluate AI coding agents - how well a model handles real-world developer tasks.

• You'll create challenging tasks and evaluation criteria within realistic simulated environments:
• Build realistic developer environments - a virtual company with codebase, infrastructure, and context (tickets, docs, conversations) that forms a believable development history
• Design tasks from intermediate states of these environments - craft the prompt, define what "solved" means, and ensure the task is solvable by an AI agent
• Write tests that verify agent solutions - accept all valid approaches and reject incorrect ones, neither too strict nor too lenient
• Iterate on tasks and tests based on QA feedback - review agent solutions, analyze failures, and refine until the evaluation is fair and robust

What this is NOT

• Not data labeling
• Not prompt engineering
• Not writing code from scratch - the agent writes most of the code; you guide and evaluate

What we look for

• 8+ years in software development
• Core stack: Python (FastAPI), JavaScript/TypeScript (React), Docker, Postgres, Kafka, Redis
• Experience writing tests (functional, integration)
• English proficiency - B2+

Why this is hard

• Frontier models are already good at coding. Creating a task that genuinely challenges the best models is non-trivial. You need to deeply understand where models fail and what scenarios reveal the difference between a good and a bad solution. Tasks have many valid solutions - writing tests that accept all correct solutions and reject incorrect ones is harder than it sounds.
• How it works
• Apply - Pass qualification(s) - Join a project - Complete tasks - Get paid Effort estimate

• Tasks for this project are estimated to take 30 hours to complete, depending on complexity. This is an estimate and not a schedule requirement; you choose when and how to work. Tasks must be submitted by the deadline and meet the listed acceptance criteria to be accepted.

Compensation

Paid per accepted task. Your rate depends on the qualification tier you reach and how efficiently you complete tasks - up to the equivalent of $200/hr. Because payment is per task, a faster pace raises your effective hourly rate.