Industrial Hygienist / Process Safety Eng at Mercor

Industrial Hygienist / Process Safety Engineer | $65–75/hr | Worldwide Remote

Mercor is building a panel of chemistry and chemical safety experts to evaluate and red-team frontier AI models. Your role is to help determine whether AI systems can correctly navigate the fine line between answering legitimate technical questions and refusing genuinely dangerous ones.

What You'll Do

• Write challenging single-turn prompts across three classification levels: benign, dual-use, and adversarial
• Evaluate AI-generated responses against defined policy standards and judge whether each was handled appropriately
• Author reference answers — including the correct response and the technical reasoning behind it

Why This Role Requires a Practitioner

This domain sits squarely on the dual-use line. The same dispersion model used to site a plant and set evacuation radii can also predict harmful exposures. The same hazard analysis that identifies a failure path is, inherently, a list of failure paths. Drawing that line reliably requires real-world experience — not generalist knowledge.

Relevant Backgrounds

• Certified Industrial Hygienist — exposure assessment, sampling strategy, control banding
• Process Hazard Analysis — HAZOP, LOPA, what-if studies, management of change
• Toxic release and dispersion modelling — consequence analysis, AEGL/ERPG criteria, facility siting
• Ventilation, containment, and PPE programme design for chemical hazards
• Regulatory compliance — PSM, Seveso, COMAH, OSHA, or national equivalents

Additional Requirements

This is writing-intensive work. Every judgment must be accompanied by a clear written rationale accessible to non-specialists. Prior technical writing, published research, or expert witness experience is a strong signal — please include a writing sample or link in your application.

Note: This work must not draw on classified, export-controlled, or NDA-protected information. If you hold such obligations, please disclose them in your application so the scope can be adjusted accordingly.