COBOL Programming Expert

About the Opportunity

A leading AI research organization is evaluating how advanced AI systems perform in specialized engineering domains, and is seeking expert engineers with deep, hands-on production experience in COBOL. The immediate focus is a benchmark of roughly 100 tasks centered on database migration in COBOL — you'll apply your mainframe expertise to assess complex, real-world technical scenarios and directly shape how cutting-edge AI performs on mainframe systems.

What You'll Do

• Apply your language expertise to evaluate technical tasks against real-world professional standards

• Review intricate code-level situations — including database migration scenarios — and provide precise, structured written assessments

• Work inside containerized repositories (Docker), running and interpreting programmatic and CI-style checks to judge whether an engineering environment is sound

• Provide clear written rationales explaining your expert judgments

• Complete well-defined, time-bounded tasks with explicit evaluation criteria

Who We're Looking For

We value strong engineering fundamentals, fast ramp-up, and high ownership. The ideal candidate brings:

• 5+ years of professional COBOL development — IBM mainframe (z/OS) production work; JCL, CICS, VSAM, DB2; banking, insurance, or government systems

• Experience with financial system backends (banking, insurance) is a strong plus, especially anything touching data or database migration work

• Comfort working in Linux/Docker-based repo environments and reading automated/CI checks — or the ability to ramp on these fast

• Ability to articulate not just what code does but why it's correct or idiomatic, clearly in writing

• Welcomed: practitioners from banking, insurance, or government backgrounds; non-traditional digital footprints are fine — a GitHub profile is not required

Why This Work Matters

COBOL runs critical infrastructure in global banking, insurance, and government systems, yet remains among the least-represented domains in AI research. The expertise you bring is rare, and your assessments directly influence how AI systems learn to operate in it.

Engagement Details

• Compensation: $130–210/hour, based on depth and experience

• This is a one-week sprint: a 2–3 day pilot, iteration on the production task set, then roughly a week of production work. Kickoff is targeted for this Friday, and we need experts who can stay highly engaged throughout

• No proprietary tooling required — tasks are completable without employer-provided systems (no mainframe access needed)

We consider all qualified applicants without regard to legally protected characteristics and provide reasonable accommodations upon request.

Contract and Payment Terms

• You will be engaged as an independent contractor.
• This is a fully remote role that can be completed on your own schedule.
• Projects can be extended, shortened, or concluded early depending on needs and performance.
• Your work at Mercor will not involve access to confidential or proprietary information from any employer, client, or institution.
• Payments are weekly on Stripe or Wise based on services rendered.
• Please note: We are unable to support H1-B or STEM OPT candidates at this time.

About Mercor

Mercor partners with leading AI labs and enterprises to train frontier models using human expertise. You will work on projects that focus on training and enhancing AI systems. You will be paid competitively, collaborate with leading researchers, and help shape the next generation of AI systems in your area of expertise.