Systems & Integration Engineering Experts

Mercor is seeking experienced Systems & Integration Engineers to support an advanced engineering and AI research initiative with a leading technology organization. We are looking for deeply hands-on engineers who have integrated, tested, validated, debugged, qualified, or analyzed complex real-world hardware and electromechanical systems in production environments.

Relevant backgrounds include:

• Systems Engineering

• Integration & Test Engineering

• Reliability / Failure Analysis Engineering

• Manufacturing Test Engineering

This role is particularly well suited for engineers who have worked directly on complex physical products and can bring practical engineering judgment to system integration, verification and validation, reliability, root-cause analysis, manufacturing test, and cross-functional hardware troubleshooting.

Key Responsibilities

• Apply hands-on systems, integration, reliability, and test engineering expertise to technically complex problems involving real physical products and hardware systems.

• Review and evaluate system requirements, interfaces, integration plans, verification strategies, test procedures, qualification approaches, reliability analyses, and manufacturing test workflows.

• Analyze system-level interactions across electrical, mechanical, firmware/software, thermal, controls, and manufacturing domains.

• Assess the technical correctness and practical feasibility of engineering solutions, test strategies, troubleshooting approaches, and system-level decisions.

• Diagnose integration failures and identify root causes, interface issues, design deficiencies, reliability risks, manufacturing defects, and test coverage gaps.

• Develop or review technically rigorous engineering problems, reference solutions, test cases, verification criteria, failure analyses, and technical documentation.

• Draw on practical experience with prototype integration, bring-up, verification and validation, qualification, environmental testing, reliability testing, production test, and field failure investigation.

• Provide clear technical feedback grounded in real-world hardware development, testing, and production experience.

You’re a Strong Fit If You Have

• 5+ years of professional systems, integration, reliability, or test engineering experience, including at least 3 years of recent, actively hands-on experience with hardware integration, test, validation, qualification, failure analysis, manufacturing test, or troubleshooting—not solely program or people management.

• Demonstrated experience as the responsible engineer for complex physical systems or hardware products, owning meaningful portions of the lifecycle from requirements and interface definition through integration, verification, qualification, production readiness, and field support.

• Deep technical expertise in at least one core domain: systems engineering and requirements/V&V; hardware integration and test; reliability engineering and failure analysis; or manufacturing/production test engineering.

• Strong practical command of requirements traceability, interface management, verification and validation, test planning, FMEA/FMECA, fault isolation, root-cause analysis, reliability, qualification, environmental testing, design-for-test, manufacturing yield, and system-level failure modes, as applicable to the candidate's specialization.

• Extensive hands-on experience integrating, instrumenting, testing, debugging, and characterizing physical hardware, using relevant laboratory equipment, data-acquisition systems, automated test infrastructure, environmental test equipment, diagnostic tools, and structured failure-analysis methodologies.

• Proven experience developing and validating hardware in real-world product or manufacturing environments, ideally across aerospace/defense, space, automotive/EV, semiconductors, consumer electronics, robotics/eVTOL, industrial/energy, or medical devices—e.g., Lockheed Martin, RTX, Boeing, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Tesla, Rivian, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Intel, Apple, Google, Meta, Skydio, Shield AI, Joby, Boston Dynamics, Siemens, GE Aerospace, ABB, Medtronic, or Intuitive Surgical—with the ability to clearly explain system decisions, integration trade-offs, test results, root causes, and failure mechanisms.

Preferred Background

Experience working for a company that designs, builds, integrates, tests, and manufactures complex physical hardware systems is strongly preferred. Relevant organizations may include, but are not limited to:

• Aerospace & Defense: Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX, Boeing, General Atomics, L3Harris, BAE Systems, General Dynamics, Honeywell Aerospace, Textron

• Space: Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Relativity Space, Firefly Aerospace, Sierra Space, Astranis, Planet, Maxar, Axiom Space

• Automotive & EV: Tesla, Rivian, General Motors, Ford, Lucid, Waymo, Zoox, Aptiv, Bosch

• Semiconductors: NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Intel, Analog Devices, Texas Instruments, Broadcom, Marvell, Micron, NXP, Infineon

• Consumer Electronics & Computing: Apple, Google Hardware, Meta Reality Labs, Microsoft Devices, Amazon, Samsung, Garmin, Sonos

• Drones, eVTOL & Robotics: Skydio, Shield AI, Zipline, Joby Aviation, Archer Aviation, Boston Dynamics, Figure, Agility Robotics, Wing

• Industrial, Energy & Medical Devices: Siemens, GE Aerospace, GE Vernova, ABB, Schneider Electric, Rockwell Automation, Enphase, Medtronic, Intuitive Surgical

Candidates from comparable hardware-focused organizations are equally encouraged to apply.

Why Join

• Apply your systems and integration expertise to technically challenging problems at the intersection of advanced hardware engineering and AI research.

• Work on projects where practical experience with real hardware integration, verification, reliability, failure analysis, and production testing is highly valued.

• Help improve how advanced AI systems reason about complex systems, interfaces, verification and validation, troubleshooting, reliability, manufacturing, and hardware failures.

• Contribute remotely with flexible engagement structures alongside experienced engineers and researchers.

• Work on problems requiring genuine engineering judgment and hands-on industry experience rather than purely theoretical systems knowledge.

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.