PhD-Level Bioinformatics Expert at Mercor

PhD-Level Bioinformatics Expert | $60–$85/hr | Worldwide Remote | 4-Week Contract

Mercor is partnering with one of the world's leading AI labs to recruit expert bioinformaticians for a high-priority benchmark evaluation project. In this role, you will independently solve complex bioinformatics data-analysis problems, with your work directly shaping how frontier AI models are evaluated on real scientific reasoning tasks.

This is a solving role — not a problem-writing role. You will operate under a blind protocol, tackling each task independently without prior context, and submitting complete analytical workflows as well-documented Jupyter notebooks.

Key Responsibilities

• Solve challenging bioinformatics problems spanning diverse subdomains including transcriptomics, genomics, virology, and more.
• Analyze large biological datasets and produce reproducible, well-documented Jupyter notebooks as deliverables.
• Work independently on ambiguous analytical tasks with no external guidance.

Ideal Qualifications

• PhD or Master's degree in bioinformatics, computational biology, genomics, or a closely related field.
• Hands-on experience with at least 2 of the following: RNA-seq analysis, variant calling, metagenomic classification, epigenomic profiling (ChIP-seq/methylation), single-cell analysis, or population genetics.
• Proficiency in Python and/or R for bioinformatics pipelines.
• Experience producing reproducible, well-documented Jupyter notebooks.
• Familiarity with command-line tools such as samtools.
• Strong independent problem-solving skills with comfort navigating ambiguous tasks.

Engagement Details

• 4-week engagement beginning in March.
• Tasks assigned on a rolling basis.
• Fully remote and flexible.

Interview Process

• Short screening questionnaire to assess subdomain expertise and tool familiarity.