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 t
