Software Engineer, Applied AI - Frontier Engineering

About Mercor

Mercor’s mission is to organize human intelligence for the AI economy. We build the infrastructure that enables frontier AI labs and enterprises to train, evaluate, and improve AI on real-world professional work. More than five million experts have joined our network, and we pay out over $5 million daily for their knowledge and expertise.

We built our training and evaluation infrastructure alongside the world’s leading AI labs. Now, we’re bringing those capabilities to enterprises across industries, enabling them to train, evaluate, and improve AI using their own expertise and standards. Our APEX benchmarks measure how AI performs on economically valuable work, while our enterprise evaluations and post-training capabilities turn those insights into measurable improvements across real-world workflows.

Our work sits at the intersection of frontier AI, human expertise, and real-world application. We’re solving problems few companies have encountered, with the opportunity to influence what the world’s most advanced AI systems become capable of doing. We’re looking for people who bring different perspectives, take ownership, exercise sound judgment, and hold themselves to an exceptionally high standard. You’ll have the opportunity to do consequential work alongside talented colleagues who challenge one another, collaborate openly, and share a commitment to excellence.

Mercor is profitable and recently raised a $750 million Series D at a $20 billion valuation. We work in person five days a week in San Francisco, New York, and London.

About the Role

As a Software Engineer on Applied AI, you’ll build, deploy, and operate systems that sit directly between frontier AI research and data delivery.

This is a high-ownership, deeply technical role. You’ll work through ill-defined problems, prototype quickly with researchers and customers, and take systems from early experiments to reliable, scalable production. You’ll own projects end-to-end: spanning requirements gathering, creating data creation pipelines, and improving model-adjacent infrastructure, while partnering closely with frontier AI labs and Mercor’s internal teams to ship high-impact applied AI solutions.

What You’ll Do

• Partner closely with frontier AI labs to understand their data, post-training, and evaluation needs

• Build and operate scalable data pipelines for post-training workflows and model evaluations

• Design and build scalable systems for synthetic data generation and data quality, and work directly with customers to understand requirements and develop technical solutions

• Prototype new data types, benchmarks, and evaluation frameworks

• Lead technical discussions with customers

What Makes This Role Different

• Direct frontier exposure. You’ll work closely with researchers at leading AI labs, building infrastructure that directly accelerates cutting-edge research.

• Coding + customer work. This role blends deep technical execution with customer interaction. Engineers who enjoy both building and communicating tend to thrive.

Day-to-Day

• Fast-moving, high-ownership environment

• Technically demanding, collaborative work

• “Building the plane while flying it”

• In-person culture (SF, 181 Fremont)

• Aligned with frontier research timelines

What We’re Looking For

• Strong backend engineering fundamentals in a modern language (Python, Go, Rust, etc.)

• Experience with model training and inference

• Strong grounding in statistical analysis and experimental design for measuring model performance and improvements

• Familiarity with evaluation methods for large language models

• Comfort working through ambiguity and shipping iteratively

You’re likely someone who

• Enjoys ownership and customer-facing problem solving

• Thinks entrepreneurially and moves quickly

• Balances speed with engineering rigor

• Communicates clearly with technical and non-technical users

Why Engineers Join

• Direct exposure to frontier AI research

• Real ownership and visible impact

• Technical depth paired with human interaction

• Fast feedback loops and high leverage

• There are very few roles that combine this level of technical rigor, customer proximity, and research exposure.

Benefits

• Bi-annual performance bonus structure

• Generous equity grant vested over 4 years

• Up to $15k Relocation bonus

• $10K proximity bonus (if you live within 0.5 miles of our office)

• $1.5K monthly stipend for meals

• Free Equinox membership

• $200 monthly laundry reimbursement

• $200 monthly personal wellness reimbursement

• Health, Dental, Vision insurance

Mercor is an Equal Opportunity Employer and is committed to providing equal opportunity to all employees and applicants. Mercor does not discriminate based on actual or perceived race, color, creed, religion, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, age, sex or gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, related medical conditions and lactation), gender identity or gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, military service and veteran status, disability, protected medical condition as defined by California or local law, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, California, or local laws and ordinances. Further, Mercor prohibits discrimination, harassment, and retaliation based on any combination of protected characteristics. This Policy applies to all areas of employment, including recruitment, hiring, training, promotion, compensation, benefits, discipline, termination, and all other privileges, terms, and conditions of employment. This Policy and the law prohibit employment discrimination against any employee or applicant based on any legally protected status.