Cincinnatus is an enterprise staffing company that partners with leading technology companies to source and employ highly skilled professionals for full-time and long-term contingent roles. Cincinnatus serves as the employer of record for these engagements, providing W-2 employment, payroll, benefits, and compliance, while placing employees directly within client teams to work on high-impact initiatives. Roles hired through Cincinnatus are not project-based or freelance engagements. They are structured, role-based positions that typically involve full-time or fixed-term commitments, close collaboration with a client's internal teams, and integration into standard enterprise workflows. Cincinnatus is a legal entity separate from Mercor. While opportunities may be discovered through Mercor's platform, employment, onboarding, payroll, and benefits for these roles are administered by Cincinnatus. Equal Employment Opportunity Cincinnatus is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, reproductive health decisions, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, genetic information, political views or activity, or any other legally protected characteristic. Cincinnatus is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans throughout the job application process.
AI/ML Research Scientist PhD STEM Expert
Location
United States
Posted
3 days ago
Salary
$50 - $100 / hour
Seniority
Mid Level
Job Description
Role Description
- Design challenging, real-world STEM problems to evaluate model reasoning and problem-solving.
- Implement tasks using Python in an agentic development environment.
- Analyze model/agent behavior to diagnose reasoning gaps and improve performance.
- Develop reproducible and testable deliverables with clear specifications and deterministic tests.
- Collaborate with AI research teams to enhance model outputs and training data quality.
- Work independently and asynchronously to meet deadlines and project goals.
Qualifications
- Deep expertise in data science, machine learning, finance, and/or Python-based coding.
- Active or recently graduated PhD (Top 20 U.S.-based school).
- Strong research background in frontier STEM topics.
- Ability to engage reliably for 30+ hours/week, primarily on weekdays.
- Demonstrated technical output such as high-quality open-source contributions.
- Comfort reading and reasoning about agent behavior traces to diagnose failure modes.
Requirements
- Familiarity with agentic frameworks and OSS ecosystems like LangChain, MetaGPT, AutoGen, AutoGPT, CrewAI, LlamaIndex, BabyAGI, SuperAGI, CAMEL, AgentGPT, Dify.
Benefits
- Compensation: $50–$100/hour
- Commitment: 30+ hours/week
- Type: Contract
Application Process
- Upload resume
- AI interview based on your resume
- Submit form
Resources & Support
- For details about the interview process and platform information, please check: Interview Process
- For any help or support, reach out to: support@mercor.com
- PS: Our team reviews applications daily. Please complete your AI interview and application steps to be considered for this opportunity.
Job Requirements
- Deep expertise in data science, machine learning, finance, and/or Python-based coding.
- Active or recently graduated PhD (Top 20 U.S.-based school).
- Strong research background in frontier STEM topics.
- Ability to engage reliably for 30+ hours/week, primarily on weekdays.
- Demonstrated technical output such as high-quality open-source contributions.
- Comfort reading and reasoning about agent behavior traces to diagnose failure modes.
- Familiarity with agentic frameworks and OSS ecosystems like LangChain, MetaGPT, AutoGen, AutoGPT, CrewAI, LlamaIndex, BabyAGI, SuperAGI, CAMEL, AgentGPT, Dify.
Benefits
- Compensation: $50–$100/hour
- Commitment: 30+ hours/week
- Type: Contract
- Application Process
- Upload resume
- AI interview based on your resume
- Submit form
- Resources & Support
- For details about the interview process and platform information, please check: Interview Process
- For any help or support, reach out to: support@mercor.com
- PS: Our team reviews applications daily. Please complete your AI interview and application steps to be considered for this opportunity.
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