Senior Open-Source Contributor

About This Role

Mercor is seeking current or former CTOs or Founders with direct access and authority over their organization’s private codebase to partner on high-impact AI training and evaluation initiatives. You’ll be working with us and the AI company we engage to securely use your code to build realistic evals and, where permitted, train/improve coding models.

What You’ll Do

• Authorize & enable access: Verify you have the legal authority to grant a limited license for evaluation and (if agreed) training use; coordinate secure repository access (read-only, scoped).
• Curate high-value datasets: Select representative modules/services, strip or mask secrets/PII, and define inclusion/exclusion rules.
• Design realistic evaluations: Create task suites spanning your stack (e.g., refactors, bug-fixes, feature diffs, tests, performance work), grounded in your production code.
• Develop test harnesses: Build/guide test cases and scoring that reflect real engineering constraints (builds, CI, style, coverage, perf).
• Analyze outcomes: Review model behavior on your code, highlight failure modes, and propose improvements aligned to your architecture.
• Ensure compliance & security: Partner with us on data handling (DPA/MSA/SOW), audit logs, redaction, secret scanning, and access revocation.

You’re a great fit if you

• Are a CTO/founder (current or former) who controls or can authorize access to a substantial, production codebase (mono-repo or multi-service).
• Can grant a time-boxed, purpose-limited license for evaluation and—if mutually agreed—training on selected code segments.
• Have deep knowledge of your system’s architecture, tooling, and standards (Git, CI/CD, testing, observability).
• Are fluent in one or more of: Python, Java, C/C++, JavaScript, TypeScript (others welcome).
• Can collaborate asynchronously with researchers/engineers and move quickly with minimal oversight.
• Are an active OSS contributor on Git

Role details

• Engagement: Part-time, flexible, 100% remote/asynchronous.
• Scope: Evaluation-only by default; training usage optional and controlled by written agreement (purpose-limited, revocable).
• Security: Read-only, least-privilege access; optional on-prem/VPC workflows; comprehensive auditability.

Compensation & Legal

You’ll be engaged as an hourly contractor via Mercor; payments weekly via Stripe Connect.
For qualifying partners, we can structure separate, limited licenses (with fees) for evaluation and/or training use of selected code assets.
All work is governed by mutually executed MSA/SOW and data protection terms.