Job Description
- *Mercor is hiring experienced Software Engineers specialized in Cybersecurity** to support high-impact research collaborations with leading AI labs. Freelancers will contribute to building training datasets that improve AI model reasoning and problem-solving on real-world coding tasks.
This is a unique opportunity to apply your software engineering expertise toward shaping the next generation of intelligent systems.
### About the Project
You'll annotate frontier-model trajectories on **SWE-bench–style tasks** derived from real open-source repositories. Currently, closed-source models do not expose their internal reasoning traces, making it difficult to understand how LLMs approach problem-solving.
To address this gap, you'll **reconstruct and annotate the reasoning portions** of model trajectories—using your own problem-solving process and the full task context to infer and infill the underlying thought process at each step.
### Key Responsibilities
- Design benchmark tasks by ideating a vulnerability class (type/subtype + difficulty) and validating the intended exploit behavior
- Create or validate small runnable codebases (“environment/” repos) that include ingestion plus prompt/tool usage where the trust boundary is violated
- Validate the attack via an exploit script and document the unsafe behavior clearly
- Validate implementation of a patch that prevents the exploit and verify the fix is effective
- **Produce task metadata (e.g., severity mapping, exact file/line locations, impact analysis, remediation summary, references)**
- Conduct review + QC to ensure paths resolve, line ranges are correct, labels aren’t leaked, and the fix blocks the exploit
### Ideal Qualifications
- 2+ years of experience in software engineering, with a focus on application security, vulnerability research, or secure software engineering
- Degree in Software Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field (Bachelor's minimum; advanced degree preferred)
- Strong proficiency in Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, or other common languages found in open-source projects
- Familiarity with version control workflows (Git, PRs, issue tracking)
- Comfortable articulating technical reasoning in clear, structured writing
### Project Timeline
- **Start Date:** Immediate
- **Duration:** 1–2 months
- **Commitment:** Part-time (15–25 hours/week, with flexibility up to 40 hours/week)
### Application & Onboarding Process
1. Upload your resume
2. AI interview: A short, 15-minute conversational session to understand your background, experience, and interest in the role
- 3. Follow-up communication within a few days with next steps and onboarding details
- *Apply today** and leverage your software engineering expertise to help build the future of AI-driven systems!
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