Mercor is at the intersection of labor markets and AI research. We partner with leading AI labs and enterprises to provide the human intelligence essential to AI development.
Our vast talent network trains frontier AI models in the same way teachers teach students: by sharing knowledge, experience, and context that can't be captured in code alone. Today, more than 30,000 experts in our network collectively earn over $1.5 million a day.
Mercor is creating a new category of work where expertise powers AI advancement. Achieving this requires an ambitious, fast-paced and deeply committed team. You’ll work alongside researchers, operators, and AI companies at the forefront of shaping the systems that are redefining society.
Mercor is a profitable Series C company valued at $10 billion. We work in-person five days a week in our new San Francisco headquarters.
About the Role
As a Software Engineer at Mercor, you’ll take end-to-end ownership of complex projects that power the workflows of the world’s leading AI companies. You’ll architect and scale distributed systems, mentor other engineers, and set technical direction for high-impact initiatives. This role goes beyond coding: you’ll help shape engineering culture, influence product decisions, and ensure our systems scale in lockstep with our hyper-growth.
At the end of the process, you’ll be team-matched to where you can have the most impact, on one of the following:
Talent platform side – building next-generation tools that automate recruiting end-to-end, intelligently match candidates to roles, and power global hiring with seamless contracts and payments.
Applied AI/human data side – partnering with top AI researchers from the AI labs like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google to create post training datasets to improve foundational model capabilities.
What You’ll Do
Design, build, and scale production-grade backend APIs, services, and infrastructure.
Take ownership of system design and architecture decisions that impact core workflows.
Mentor and support junior engineers through code reviews, pair programming, and design discussions.
Partner with Product and Design to deliver features quickly without sacrificing quality or scalability.
Anticipate technical bottlenecks, propose solutions, and drive initiatives that increase reliability.
Contribute to the systems that enable OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and others to train and evaluate their models.
What We’re Looking For
Strong coding fundamentals in Python (our primary backend), though interviews are language-agnostic.
Deep understanding of distributed systems, scalability challenges, and system design.
Experience shipping production systems at scale in high-growth or high-stakes environments.
Ability to reason about trade-offs and make decisions balancing speed and reliability.
Strong communication skills with an ability to align technical and business goals.
Bias toward ownership, curiosity, and delivering simple solutions to complex problems.
Why Mercor
Impact: Your work powers how the world’s leading AI labs train and test their models.
Learning: Get early insights into frontier model capabilities months before the market.
Growth: Work on both infrastructure and research-adjacent projects with fast paths to ownership.
Benefits
Generous equity grant vested over 4 years
A $20K relocation bonus (if moving to the Bay Area)
A $10K housing bonus (if you live within 0.5 miles of our office)
A $1K monthly stipend for meals
Free Equinox membership
Health insurance
Top Skills
What We Do
We use AI to understand human ability and match talent with the opportunities they're best suited for.
