Job Description

About the job

Mercor connects elite creative and technical talent with leading AI research labs. Headquartered in San Francisco, our investors include Benchmark , General Catalyst , Peter Thiel , Adam D'Angelo , Larry Summers , and Jack Dorsey .

Position: Materials Science Expert

Type: Contract

Compensation: $1,150–$1,450/task

Location: Remote

Role Responsibilities

• Build a realistic digital workspace centered on the Drive folders you use daily. Include experimental write-ups, characterization reports, simulation results, technology transfer memos, IP disclosures, project proposals, and email threads. Represent platforms like VASP , Materials Studio (Biovia) , LabVantage LIMS , and ANSYS Fluent .
• Design multi-step tasks grounded in your real workflows. Require navigation of multiple apps, files, and stakeholders to challenge frontier AI agents.
• Collaborate with other materials-science experts to design the environment, shape task scope, and review scenarios for realism and rigor.
• Work asynchronously with research teams to refine task designs and evaluation criteria for materials-science agent benchmarks.
• Contribute to frontier AI research and benchmarking. Your work directly informs how leading labs train and evaluate the next generation of AI systems.

Qualifications

Must-Have

• MS / PhD in materials science, chemistry, physics, or related discipline.
• 3+ years of full-time experience at a Fortune 500 R&D organization, national lab, or R1 university materials research group .
• Background in metals, polymers, ceramics, composites, or semiconductor materials.
• Experience with characterization techniques like XRD , SEM/TEM , spectroscopy, and thermal analysis.
• Computational materials science expertise in DFT or MD .
• Process development and scale-up experience.
• Reliability and failure analysis in advanced materials.
• Day-to-day use of VASP , Materials Studio (Biovia) , LabVantage / LabWare LIMS , and ANSYS Fluent / STAR-CCM+ .
• Strong analytical thinking and writing skills to translate materials-science workflows into structured task specs.

Compensation & Legal

• Task Completion Pay: Competitive and based on task quality (~$1,150–$1,450 per completed task, subject to change as the project evolves).
• Performance Bonus: Top performers receive a weekly bonus incentive on top of their per task rate.
• Hourly Opportunity: Top performers may be invited to transition to an hourly compensation model based on sustained quality and throughput.

Application Process (Takes 20–30 mins to complete)

• Upload resume
• AI interview based on your resume
• Submit form

Resources & Support

• For details about the interview process and platform information, please check:
• For any help or support, reach out to: support@mercor.com

PS: Our team reviews applications daily. Please complete your AI interview and application steps to be considered for this opportunity.

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