Mercor

Infrastructure / Site Reliability Engineer (SRE)

  • Kind of work: STEM
  • Location: Remote, countries not stated
  • Experience: Expert
  • Hours: Part time
  • Languages: English

$200/hr

Remote part time STEM contract with Mercor, $200/hr. Posted Oct 7.

Is this job worth applying to?

Pay
Above typicalTops out at $200/hr. The typical top rate across 148 priced STEM listings is $70/hr.
Getting in
Some screening~30 min: resume upload + 20-min AI interview. Resume showing real experience in your field.
Steady work
Work is patchyProjects can pause or end with little notice.
Payout record
Pays on timeSchedule: weekly, every Wednesday. Paid via Stripe (Wise in a few countries).
Freshness
RecentPosted 4w ago. Still listed on Mercor on Nov 6, 2026.
Where you live
Not statedThe listing names no country.

The job description

Mercor connects exceptional technical talent with leading organisations working on ambitious technology and AI initiatives. We are looking for experienced Infrastructure / Site Reliability Engineers (SREs) to join a full-time engagement focused on building and operating complex, enterprise-grade infrastructure. We are seeking engineers with strong hands-on experience building, operating, debugging, and scaling sophisticated production systems. The ideal candidate has worked extensively with Kubernetes, AWS, observability platforms such as Datadog, and modern infrastructure tooling.

This is a full-time opportunity, and candidates must be able to commit to full-time engagement.

What You'll Do

  • Build, operate, and improve highly available and scalable production infrastructure.
  • Manage and optimise Kubernetes-based production environments.
  • Design and maintain cloud infrastructure, primarily across AWS.
  • Improve system reliability, availability, scalability, and operational efficiency.
  • Build and maintain observability across infrastructure and applications using Datadog or similar platforms.
  • Investigate production incidents, perform root-cause analysis, and implement durable fixes.
  • Improve monitoring, alerting, logging, tracing, and overall production visibility.
  • Develop automation and internal tooling to reduce manual operational work.
  • Partner closely with software engineering teams on deployments, infrastructure, and production reliability.
  • Contribute to infrastructure architecture and technical decisions for complex distributed systems.

Ideal Background

  • Professional experience in Infrastructure Engineering, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Platform Engineering, DevOps, or Production Engineering.
  • Hands-on experience operating complex, enterprise-grade production systems.
  • Strong production experience with Kubernetes.
  • Strong experience with AWS and cloud-native infrastructure.
  • Experience with Datadog, Prometheus, Grafana, or comparable observability platforms.
  • Experience with Infrastructure as Code using Terraform, Pulumi, or equivalent technologies.
  • Strong understanding of distributed systems, networking, containers, Linux, and cloud architecture.
  • Experience building or maintaining CI/CD and production deployment infrastructure.
  • Strong debugging, troubleshooting, and incident-response capabilities.
  • Proficiency in at least one programming or scripting language, such as Python, Go, or Bash.

Strong Signals

  • Experience operating Kubernetes and cloud infrastructure at significant production scale.
  • Experience supporting high-traffic or mission-critical applications.
  • Experience building infrastructure or platform tooling used by large engineering organisations.
  • Ownership of production reliability, on-call operations, incident response, or capacity planning.
  • Experience working within sophisticated, large-scale distributed systems.
  • Demonstrated improvements to SLOs/SLIs, observability, deployment reliability, infrastructure performance, or operational efficiency.

Why Join

  • Solve challenging reliability, scalability, and performance problems across enterprise-grade production systems.
  • Work extensively with technologies such as Kubernetes, AWS, Datadog, Terraform/Pulumi, and modern cloud-native tooling.
  • Take meaningful ownership of production reliability, observability, infrastructure architecture, and operational improvements.
  • Competitive hourly compensation reflecting your experience and technical expertise.
  • Join a network of highly skilled engineers working on ambitious projects with leading technology and AI organisations.

How do you apply to Mercor?

  1. Apply on Mercor

    The Apply button opens this post on Mercor's own site. You apply with them, not with Rubric. Budget about 30 min: resume upload + 20-min AI interview.

  2. Get through screening

    What Mercor asks for after you apply:

    • Take the recorded AI video interview (practice round available)
    • Complete any role-specific assessment and the ID check
    • Accept the offer and sign the contract
  3. Start work and get paid

    Pay schedule: weekly, every Wednesday. Paid via Stripe (Wise in a few countries). You're paid for the work they hand out, not a fixed salary.

Mercor also needs

  • Resume showing real experience in your field
  • Webcam with your full face visible for the AI interview
  • Government ID

Red flags

  • Red flagLong waits with no offer after passing the interview
  • Red flagProjects ending abruptly with little warning

What is Mercor like to work for?

Hiring marketplace that screens professionals with an AI video interview and places them on hourly contracts training and evaluating models for AI labs.

Advertised pay$20–200/hr
Getting inSome screening
Application takes~30 min: resume upload + 20-min AI interview
How you get paidWeekly, every Wednesday, via Stripe (Wise in a few countries)
Payout recordPays on time
CountriesHires in many countries and runs its pay week on India Standard Time; Mercor keeps a list of locations it cannot onboard, and some projects are US-only.

Most listings sit around $50–100/hr; healthcare, legal and finance roles pay the most, language and generalist roles the least.

$200/hrAdvertised payApply on Mercor