Analytical Chemist

About the work Mercor is assembling a panel of chemistry and chemical safety experts to red-team frontier AI models. The goal is to test whether a model can correctly judge the misuse potential of a technical request - answering legitimate questions fully while refusing genuinely dangerous ones.

• Write challenging single-turn prompts in your domain, labelled across three levels: benign, dual-use, and adversarial.
• Evaluate the responses that come back against a defined policy standard, and judge whether each was handled correctly.
• Write the reference answer - what a correct response looks like, and the technical reasoning for why.
• You will be writing prompts that sit exactly on that line, then judging whether the model held it.

We're looking for analysts who have built and validated methods for hazardous compounds - people who know what a detection limit really means and what it implies.

• Detection and identification of hazardous compounds - GC-MS, LC-MS/MS, IR, NMR
• Method development and validation for trace-level analysis
• Environmental, occupational or emergency-response sampling and analysis
• Reference standards, spectral libraries and unknown identification
• Laboratory accreditation, QA/QC and proficiency testing

This is writing-intensive work. Every judgment you make needs a written rationale that a non-specialist can follow. Prior technical writing, published research, or expert witness experience is a strong signal; please include a sample or link. You will also be reading and writing about misuse scenarios in your field for sustained periods. We brief experts on this in advance, and you can pause or step away at any point without penalty.

Your work here will not involve, and must not draw on, classified or export-controlled information, or anything covered by an NDA or prepublication review obligation. If you hold such obligations you may still be a good fit; tell us in your application and we will scope the work accordingly.