This range is provided by Mercor. Your actual pay will be based on your skills and experience - talk with your recruiter to learn more.
Base pay range
$130,000.00/yr - $500,000.00/yr
About Mercor Mercor is training models that predict how well someone will perform on a job better than a human can. We use our platform to source, vet, and onboard expert contractors who help train AI models in a wide variety of domains. Our technology is used by all of the top 5 AI labs. We scaled from $1-$500M in revenue run rate in the last 17 months, making us the fastest growing company in the world. Our growth is accelerating: 11% week-over-week in July, 18% in August, and 19% in September. The team is small, profitable, and growing as fast as we can hire exceptional people.
About The Role As a Software Engineer at Mercor, you'll take end-to-end ownership of complex projects that power the workflows of the world's leading AI companies. You'll architect and scale distributed systems, mentor other engineers, and set technical direction for high-impact initiatives. This role goes beyond coding: you'll help shape engineering culture, influence product decisions, and ensure our systems scale in lockstep with our hyper-growth.
At The End Of The Process, You'll Be Team-matched To Where You Can Have The Most Impact, On One Of The Following
- Talent platform side - building next-generation tools that automate recruiting end-to-end, intelligently match candidates to roles, and power global hiring with seamless contracts and payments.
- Applied AI/human data side - partnering with top AI researchers from the AI labs like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google to create post training datasets to improve foundational model capabilities.
What You'll Do
- Design, build, and scale production-grade backend APIs, services, and infrastructure.
- Take ownership of system design and architecture decisions that impact core workflows.
- Mentor and support junior engineers through code reviews, pair programming, and design discussions.
- Partner with Product and Design to deliver features quickly without sacrificing quality or scalability.
- Anticipate technical bottlenecks, propose solutions, and drive initiatives that increase reliability.
- Contribute to the systems that enable OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and others to train and evaluate their models.
What We're Looking For
- Strong coding fundamentals in Python (our primary backend), though interviews are language-agnostic.
- Deep understanding of distributed systems, scalability challenges, and system design.
- Experience shipping production systems at scale in high-growth or high-stakes environments.
- Ability to reason about trade-offs and make decisions balancing speed and reliability.
- Strong communication skills with an ability to align technical and business goals.
- Bias toward ownership, curiosity, and delivering simple solutions to complex problems.
Why Mercor
- Impact: Your work powers how the world's leading AI labs train and test their models.
- Learning: Get early insights into frontier model capabilities months before the market.
- Growth: Work on both infrastructure and research-adjacent projects with fast paths to ownership.
Benefits
- Generous equity grant vested over 4 years
- A $20K relocation bonus (if moving to the Bay Area)
- A $10K housing bonus (if you live within 0.5 miles of our office)
- A $1K monthly stipend for meals
- Free Equinox membership
- Health insurance
Compensation Range: $130K - $500K
Seniority level
Employment type
Job function
- Engineering and Information Technology
Industries
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Software Engineer, Fullstack, Early Career - San Francisco, CA, $126,000.00-$180,000.00