LLM Research Scientist (Pre-training & Computer Vision & Adversarial Robustness)
$100–120/hr
Remote science contract with Mercor, $100–120/hr. Posted Aug 5.
$100–120/hr
Apply on MercorIs this job worth applying to?
- Pay
- Above typicalTops out at $120/hr. The typical top rate across 106 priced science listings is $90/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
- Older postPosted 3mo ago. Still listed on Mercor on Nov 6, 2026.
- Where you live
- Not statedThe listing names no country.
The job description
We're looking for experienced machine learning researchers with hands-on experience training and improving deep learning models end-to-end, across vision and language. You'll work on well-scoped empirical open-ended ML research problems.
Responsibilities
- Train image classifiers and generative image models from scratch, and fine-tune open-weight language models.
- Get the most out of limited data, compute, and model-size budgets.
- Make models robust — to adversarial inputs and to adversarial conversations.
- Compress models to meet hard size and latency constraints without sacrificing accuracy.
- Diagnose and resolve training issues.
Requirements
We are looking for candidates with strong expertise in one or more of the following areas:
Adversarial Robustness
Experience with:
- Adversarial training of image classifiers (e.g. PGD-based training, TRADES).
- Evaluating robust accuracy under standard threat models (e.g. L∞ attacks, AutoAttack) and avoiding gradient-masking pitfalls.
- Managing the robustness–accuracy trade-off and robust overfitting.
Efficient Computer Vision
Experience with:
- Training image classifiers end-to-end, especially for fine-grained recognition (many visually similar classes, few examples per class).
- Model compression: quantization, pruning, and knowledge distillation from large teachers into small students.
- Deploying models under hard size or latency budgets (on-device, edge, or embedded settings).
Generative Image Modeling
Experience with:
- Training image generative models from scratch: diffusion models, GANs, VAEs, or flow-based models.
- Iterating against sample-quality metrics such as FID.
- Training-efficiency tricks that produce good generators quickly and at small parameter counts.
LLM Post-Training & Behavioral Robustness
Hands-on experience with one or more of:
- Supervised fine-tuning and preference optimisation (DPO, RLHF, RLAIF) of open-weight language models, including building your own datasets via synthetic generation, noisy or weak supervision, and rejection sampling.
- Shaping conversational behaviour over multiple turns: resistance to persuasion and sycophancy, calibrated confidence, and knowing when to accept corrections.
- Alignment-style fine-tuning that changes a specific behaviour while preserving general capability.
Multilingual Pre-training
Experience with:
- Training multilingual or low-resource-language models from scratch.
- Tokenizer design across scripts and typologically diverse languages.
- Balancing highly unequal per-language data (sampling temperatures, cross-lingual transfer) in data-constrained regimes.
Additional Areas of Interest
Experience in any of the following is a plus:
- Scaling laws and training-efficiency research.
- Curriculum learning and data ordering.
- Model evaluation: benchmark construction, contamination control, statistically sound comparisons.
- Uncertainty estimation and model calibration.
- Data augmentation and synthetic data for robustness.
General Qualifications
- 3+ years of machine learning research experience (PhD research counts toward this requirement).
- Strong experience with PyTorch, JAX, TensorFlow, or similar ML frameworks.
- Degree from a top-100 university, experience at a FAANG or comparable AI company, or an equivalent research track record through publications or impactful open-source contributions.
Why Join
- Work on cutting-edge machine learning research.
- Collaborate with leading AI researchers on challenging, high-impact projects.
- Flexible, project-based work with competitive compensation.
How do you apply to Mercor?
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.
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
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 in | Some screening |
| Application takes | ~30 min: resume upload + 20-min AI interview |
| How you get paid | Weekly, every Wednesday, via Stripe (Wise in a few countries) |
| Payout record | Pays on time |
| Countries | Hires 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.