1. Role Overview

We’re hiring experienced Machine Learning Engineers and Applied ML Researchers to design, solve, and evaluate complex machine learning challenges that reflect real-world ML workflows. This role requires strong hands-on modeling expertise, the ability to develop high-quality reference solutions, and deep familiarity with modern machine learning techniques across a variety of domains and data modalities.

2. What You’ll Do

• Develop end-to-end machine le.arning solutions for challenging prediction and modeling problems

• Analyze datasets and define appropriate modeling approaches, validation strategies, and evaluation metrics

• Perform exploratory data analysis, feature engineering, and data preprocessing

• Train, tune, and evaluate machine learning models across tabular, text, image, and time-series datasets

• Develop strong reference solutions using industry-standard machine learning techniques and best practices

• Review and validate the technical quality of machine learning projects and deliverables

• Document methodologies, assumptions, and evaluation results in a clear and reproducible manner

• Identify opportunities to improve model performance through systematic experimentation and iteration

3. Required Qualifications

• Master’s degree or PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, Mathematics, Electrical Engineering, or a related field from a top-tier university

• 2+ years of hands-on experience developing, training, evaluating, and optimizing machine learning models in a professional or research setting.

• Strong proficiency in Python and modern machine learning frameworks (e.g., scikit-learn, XGBoost, LightGBM, PyTorch, TensorFlow)

• Demonstrated experience building end-to-end machine learning solutions, including data preparation, model development, validation, and evaluation

• Strong understanding of model evaluation metrics, validation methodologies, and experimental design

• Experience with one or more of the following areas:

  • Tabular machine learning

  • Natural language processing

  • Computer vision

  • Recommendation systems

  • Ranking systems

  • Time-series forecasting

• Ability to work independently on open-ended machine learning problems and deliver high-quality technical outputs

4. Preferred Qualifications

• PhD from a leading research university

• Experience at leading technology companies, AI labs, research institutions, or high-growth startups

• Participation in competitive machine learning or data science competitions

• Experience optimizing models against performance-based evaluation metrics

• Familiarity with advanced techniques such as ensembling, hyperparameter optimization, transfer learning, foundation model fine-tuning, or reinforcement learning

• Publications, patents, or significant open-source contributions in machine learning or AI

• Experience reviewing, mentoring, or evaluating the work of other machine learning practitioners

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.