Applied Physics PhD - Benchmark Expert

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: Applied Physics Benchmark Specialist Type: Contract Compensation: $61-$77/hour Location: Remote Commitment: 10+ hours/week

Role Responsibilities

• Author original physics questions that test deep conceptual understanding, not surface-level recall.
• Ensure questions are unambiguous, self-contained, and precisely defined with all necessary information in the problem statement.
• Rate each question's difficulty: Medium (intro undergraduate), Hard (advanced undergraduate), or Expert (post-graduate and above).
• Provide 1 correct answer and 9 plausible but subtly incorrect alternatives that challenge expert-level solvers.
• Write step-by-step Chain-of-Thought solutions with clear, concise intermediate steps in markdown format.
• Supply 1-5 academic references per question from reputable sources (peer-reviewed journals, university repositories).
• For verification tasks: flag issues with clarity, completeness, precision, or solvability and justify any edits made.

Qualifications

Must-Have

• PhD or doctoral candidate in Physics , Applied Physics , Astrophysics , or a closely related field.
• Master's degree considered for candidates with exceptional depth in a specific subdomain.
• Strong command of graduate-level physics concepts and mathematical formalism.
• Excellent written English and ability to express complex ideas clearly and concisely.

Preferred

• Experience with rigorous academic problem design or physics olympiad writing is a strong plus.