ML Research Scientist - PhD

About the job

Mercor connects elite creative and technical talent with leading AI research labs. Headquartered in San Francisco, our investors include Benchmark , General Catalyst , Peter Thiel , Adam D'Angelo , Larry Summers , and Jack Dorsey .

Position: ML Research PhD Experts (ICML / NeurIPS / ICLR Publications)

Type: Contract

Compensation: $110–$145/hour

Location: Remote

Role Responsibilities

• Evaluate the accuracy and depth of AI-generated content to strengthen reasoning and rigor in model outputs .
• Review complex machine learning research for alignment with domain principles and methodologies.
• Provide clear, structured feedback to AI research teams to improve training data quality and downstream performance.
• Develop evaluation rubrics and benchmarks for assessing AI-generated tasks and solutions.
• Collaborate with subject matter experts to ensure consistency, relevance, and coverage across datasets.
• Work independently and asynchronously to meet deadlines while improving AI model performance .

Qualifications

Must-Have

• PhD in Machine Learning , Computer Science , AI , or a closely related field.
• Published at least one main conference paper at ICML, NeurIPS, or ICLR .
• Strong preference for candidates with 2+ publications at these venues.
• Demonstrated experience conducting original ML research .

Preferred

• Expertise in Reinforcement Learning (RL) .
• Experience with Meta-Learning .
• Knowledge of Recursive Self-Improvement .
• Familiarity with AI for Science (e.g., weather forecasting, protein modeling, scientific discovery).

Start Date

• Urgent ; initial data/results expected Monday / Tuesday 27th July .

Resources & Support

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