ML Engineer - AI Coding Expert

About the Role

• Mercor is partnering with a leading AI research lab to support a Frontier Code Agents project.
• Contributors help evaluate and improve frontier AI coding models through structured technical assessments.
• The work focuses on realistic machine learning engineering workflows and model evaluation.
• Spots are limited and filling quickly on a first come, first serve basis.

• Use frontier AI coding agents to complete and evaluate complex machine learning and AI engineering tasks.
• Review model-generated implementations involving model training, inference systems, MLOps, and LLM applications.
• Identify bugs, edge cases, performance issues, and failure modes.
• Compare outputs from multiple frontier models and assess their strengths and weaknesses.
• Apply professional engineering judgment to realistic ML engineering scenarios.

• Sprint based project that runs in 12-24 hour stretches based on client requirement.

• $400 per accepted task.
• Typical tasks take approximately 2-3 hours after ramp-up.
• Compensation is tied to accepted work.

• 2+ years of professional machine learning engineering experience.
• Experience building production ML systems, model deployment infrastructure, LLM applications, or AI-powered products.
• Regular use of AI coding agents such as Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, Windsurf, Gemini CLI, or similar tools.
• Ability to evaluate model-generated machine learning implementations and technical tradeoffs.
• Experience deploying ML systems to production is preferred.