Academic Research Collaborator at Mercor

Academic Research Collaborator (Professors & PhDs) | $80–110/hr | Remote in US

Join a frontier AI lab's GenAI team and play a central role in shaping the next generation of Large Language Models. We are seeking professors and PhD students across STEM and professional disciplines to design and validate challenging benchmark tasks for cutting-edge model evaluation efforts.

About the Role

This is a W2 employment position with Cincinnatus LLC, placing you directly within a leading AI lab's extended workforce. You will collaborate with a team of domain experts to build robust, real-world agentic tasks — complete with executable Python tests — and analyze model behavior to identify reasoning and problem-solving gaps in frontier AI systems.

Key Responsibilities

• Task Design & Development: Create challenging, domain-specific problems drawn from your area of expertise (e.g., financial modeling, legal reasoning, ML, scientific computation) targeting specific capability gaps in frontier AI models.
• Spec & Golden Solution Generation: Integrate problems into an agentic development environment using Python, preparing all necessary components and solutions.
• Evaluation & Analysis: Assess the target model's performance on designed tasks and document findings.
• Headroom Identification: Identify tasks where the model fails, classifying failures as logical reasoning breakdowns to guide further development.

Qualifications

• Current or retired professor, or enrolled PhD student, in one of the following fields:
  • STEM: ML, Coding, Data Science, CS, Physics, Mathematics, Engineering, Statistics, Biology, Chemistry
  • Professional/Quantitative: Finance, Accounting, Economics, Law, Business
• Degree (or PhD in progress) from a top-tier university
• Working proficiency in Python — demonstrated through research, industry, GitHub, or coursework
• Availability for at least 30 hours/week on weekdays (minimum 6 hours/day)
• Prior experience in AI training, model evaluation, or data annotation is a plus
• Strong communication, problem-solving, and time-management skills

Employment Details

This role is administered by Cincinnatus LLC, an enterprise staffing company that provides W-2 employment, payroll, benefits, and compliance for professionals placed within leading technology client teams. This is a structured, role-based position — not a freelance or project-based engagement.

Cincinnatus LLC is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer committed to diversity, inclusion, and reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals.