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Drug Discovery Scientist

MercorLegit · not rated yetPosted on 31 Aug 2026

Pay: $60–90/hr

Who can apply
Open worldwide
Hours
20 hrs/week · Contract
Where
Remote, work from home
Job type
Expert (SME) review
Openings
14 openings

At a glance: A contract, remote expert (SME) review job with Mercor. It pays $60–90/hr for 20 hours a week. People in any country can apply.

What happens after you click Apply

  1. You leave AI Trainer HQ and go to Mercor’s own site.
  2. Upload your résumé on work.mercor.com
  3. Confirm your work authorization
  4. Sit the AI interview, which takes about 20 minutes
  5. Complete any written assessment attached to the listing
  6. On receiving an offer, sign it, configure payouts and verify your identity

How this pay compares

This job pays more than 71% of the 204 other science (PhD) jobs on the board that state pay; 28% pay more.

This job
$75/hrMiddle of $60–90/hr
Median on Mercor
$80/hrFrom 295 other paid jobs
Median in science (PhD)
$65/hrFrom 204 other paid jobs
How we compare pay

Requirements

Qualifications
  • Not specified in the listing
Languages
  • English
Equipment
  • Computer with a reliable internet connection

About this job

About the role

This is an evaluation framework for frontier AI models in drug research and development. Domain experts write realistic research problems wrapped around messy evidence worlds. The model works offline in a sandbox with open-source scientific tooling, receiving incomplete, indirect and sometimes misleading data, and must reach a defensible conclusion. The answer is present in the evidence but never stated.

Your job is to build a research problem so realistic and well-constructed that the model has to genuinely reason to solve it — it can't pattern-match or look the answer up.

What you'll deliver

Three things per task: the prompt, the data room, and the grading document.

• Design the challenge — identify the hidden basin and the forcing chain that makes one conclusion inevitable.

• Build the world — assemble a data room from real, source-grounded data. Every decisive value traces to a real source.

• Write the grader — a grading document that scores a submitted memo on substance, not style or method.

• Validate it — run verification and calibration before submission.

• Revise it — you own the rework if a reviewer requests changes.

You are the final authority on every scientific and difficulty question in your task.

Who we're looking for

• Working expertise in mechanistic enzymology, structure-guided peptide or antibody design, fragment-based discovery, or structure-based medicinal chemistry — PhD or equivalent industry track record.

• You can pose a problem whose answer you can defend rigorously, but which a strong solver cannot shortcut.

• Comfortable judging reasoning quality, not just final answers.

Commitment

Minimum 20 hours per week, up to 40.

Tooling

Work happens in a browser-based studio plus Claude Code. A Claude Max subscription is required and is fully reimbursed.

Listing history

First seen on our board
(9 days ago)
Posted by Mercor
Last checked
Source
Mercor

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