CAD / PCB / 3D Design Engineer — AI Evaluation at Mercor

CAD / PCB / 3D Design Engineer — AI Evaluation | $60-100/hr | Remote

Mercor is partnering with a leading AI lab to evaluate how frontier AI models perform real engineering design work. You'll turn your engineering experience into realistic design tasks, test them against AI models, and refine them. Realism takes priority over difficulty.

What you'll do

• Create self-contained engineering tasks with a prompt, input files, and an automated grader that checks the result. Files may include STEP files, KiCad projects, Blender files, or meshes.
• Build and refine tasks using Claude Code, and manage versions in Git.
• Run tasks against frontier models, review model transcripts, and eliminate leaks and shortcuts so tasks are challenging for the right reasons.
• Pass automated quality checks and peer review, document the rationale for synthetic data, and attend onboarding and calibration sessions.

Design tracks

• Mechanical CAD: Parts, assemblies, mechanisms, and tolerancing. Professional experience with SolidWorks, AutoCAD, FreeCAD, or a comparable tool is required for this track. Tasks use code-based CAD tools such as build123d, CadQuery, and OpenCASCADE, plus mesh tools including trimesh, manifold3d, and Open3D. Siemens NX or CATIA experience is highly valued.
• Electronics / PCB: Schematic capture, layout, DRC/ERC, footprints, and enclosure fit using KiCad, including kicad-cli and the pcbnew Python API. openEMS or RF/EM simulation experience is a plus.
• 3D / Spatial-Temporal: Scene construction, animation, rigging, physics, and camera work in headless Blender driven by Python, plus rendering with PyVista/VTK.

Requirements

• At least 3 years of hands-on design experience in one or more tracks through industry, a research lab, or serious freelance work.
• Completed real deliverables, such as fabricated boards, manufactured parts, production 3D assets, or published research.
• A portfolio of your own design work. A portfolio link is required with your application.
• Python experience as part of your engineering work, plus comfort with the command line and Git.
• The ability to assess whether a design is technically correct, not just visually convincing.

Helpful experience

• Siemens NX or CATIA, including parts, assemblies, surfacing, drawings, or PLM systems such as Teamcenter or ENOVIA.
• Scripting design tools such as build123d, CadQuery, FreeCAD Python, NX Open, KiCad, or Blender's Python API.
• FEA, CFD, circuit, or electromagnetic simulation.
• A BS, MS, or PhD in Mechanical, Electrical, Aerospace, Robotics, Computer Graphics, or a related field.
• AI training, benchmarking, or evaluation work, or extensive daily use of AI coding agents.

Pay and schedule

• $60-100 per hour.
• Minimum 20 hours per week, with activity on at least 5 days per week.
• Remote role with an immediate start. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis.