Biology PhD - Scientific Coder

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: Biology PhD Coding Experts

Type: Contract

Compensation: $70/hour

Location: Remote

Duration: 6 weeks

Commitment: 20+ hours/week

Role Responsibilities

• Source material from published papers, Kaggle datasets, or open-source repositories to create research problems.
• Write scientific prompts and develop grading criteria for correct answers.
• Calibrate tasks against frontier models, ensuring strong models fail more often than they succeed.
• Utilize Python , R , or other programming languages for scientific computing.
• Work with Git/GitHub and Docker for code execution and quality checks.
• Collaborate asynchronously and independently to meet deadlines and improve AI model performance.

Qualifications Must-Have

• PhD in biology, biological sciences, biochemistry, genetics, ecology, or a closely related field.
• Depth in at least two subdomains: ecology, biochemistry, genetics.
• Proficiency in Python , R , or another relevant programming language.
• Comfortable with Git/GitHub and Docker .

Preferred

• Publications in peer-reviewed journals.
• Prior scientific software or research engineering experience.

Start Date

• Immediate

Interview Process

• A 25-minute conversational interview covering your background, experience, and motivations.
• Follow up within a few days with next steps and onboarding.