Physics PhD - Quantum Computing Expert

About the role

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. This is a contract position for Physics PhD Coding Experts, paying $70/hour, fully remote, with a 6‑week duration and a commitment of 20+ hours per week. Start date is immediate.

Responsibilities

• Source material from published papers, Kaggle datasets, open‑source repositories, or self‑designed scenarios.
• Write scientific prompts based on sourced inputs.
• Build grading criteria to define correct answers.
• Calibrate tasks against frontier models, ensuring tasks ship only when strong models fail more often than they succeed.
• Work independently and asynchronously to meet deadlines while improving AI model performance.

Qualifications

Must‑have:

• PhD in physics, applied physics, or a closely related field.
• Depth in at least two subdomains: condensed matter, optics, quantum information/computing, computational physics, astrophysics, particle physics.
• Working proficiency in Python, R, or another relevant programming language for scientific computing.
• Comfortable with Git/GitHub and running code in Docker.

Preferred:

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

Interview process

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

Application process

Takes 20–30 minutes to complete:

• Upload resume
• AI interview based on your resume
• Submit form

Resources & support

For details about the interview process and platform information, see https://talent.docs.mercor.com/welcome. For help or support, contact support@mercor.com.