Pharmaceutical Research Specialist - PhD

Role Overview

Mercor is partnering with leading AI labs on Project Atlas — an initiative to build realistic enterprise environments that frontier AI agents are trained and evaluated in. We're seeking experienced pharmaceutical-research professionals from Fortune 500 pharma and biotech companies (e.g., Pfizer, Merck, J&J, Abb Vie, Lilly, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Roche/Genentech, Novartis, Moderna, Regeneron) and major academic research centers to recreate the digital work spaces they run every day and design the tasks that genuinely challenge state-of-the-art AI.

You’ll bring your expertise in drug discovery, preclinical / translational research, clinical development, or regulatory / CMC to build a high-fidelity environment that mirrors the tools, files, and workflows of a regulated pharma R&D enterprise — and then author tasks grounded in the programs you actually run today.

• Build a realistic digital workspace centered on the Drive folders you use day-to-day — the study protocols, investigator brochures, IND / NDA drafts, pharmacology reports, biomarker analyses, CMC technical reports, DMC briefing documents, and email threads that reflect how you actually organize your work — with some representation of the platforms that support it (e.g., Medidata Rave / Oracle Clinical One, Schrödinger Suite, Benchling / Lab Archives)
• Design multi-step tasks grounded in your real workflows that require navigating multiple apps, files, and stakeholders in a way that meaningfully challenges frontier AI agents
• Collaborate with other pharmaceutical-research experts in your field to design the environment, shape task scope, and review each other's scenarios for realism and rigor
• Work asynchronously with research teams to refine task designs and evaluation criteria for pharma-research agent benchmarks
• Contribute to frontier AI research and benchmarking — the work you produce directly informs how leading labs train and evaluate the next generation of AI systems

• PhD / MD / Pharm
  
  D or MS with deep experience; industry fellowship training a plus
• 3+ years of full-time experience at a Fortune 500 pharma / biotech or top academic research center
• Background in one or more areas such as:
  • Target  / drug discovery (medicinal chemistry, biology, HTS, DMPK)
  • Preclinical / translational research (PK/PD, tox, biomarker)
  • Clinical development (Phase I–IV, biostatistics, clinical operations)
  • Regulatory affairs (IND, NDA, BLA, EMA) or CMC
  • Real-world evidence / HEOR / pharmacovigilance
• Day-to-day use of Medidata Rave / Oracle Clinical One, Schrödinger Suite / MOE (CCG), and Benchling / Lab Archives
• Strong analytical thinking and writing — able to translate pharma R&D workflows into structured task specs

• Task Completion Pay:
  Competitive and based on task quality (~$1,150 – $1,450 per completed task, subject to change as the project evolves)
• Performance Bonus:
  Top performers receive a weekly bonus incentive on top of their per-task rate!
• Hourly Opportunity:
  Top performers may be invited to transition to an hourly compensation model based on sustained quality and throughput.