Software Engineering Expert

Software Engineering Expert

$60-$90 per hour

Full-time position United States

Join a leading AI lab's cutting-edge GenAI team to be at the core of the AI revolution, where your expertise fuels the development of the most advanced AI models.

Overview

A leading AI lab is building the next generation of agentic evaluation benchmarks for frontier models and needs experienced software engineers to act as task curators. You will design, implement, and review complex, multi-step engineering tasks that simulate the real-world challenges research engineers face — realistic, genuinely hard problems that today's best AI coding agents cannot yet solve reliably.

Each task represents one to two days of continuous, focused effort and spans multiple technical skills: Python implementation, environment and tooling setup, debugging, and clear documentation. You will work in a tight feedback loop with the lab's researchers, verifying exactly where and why frontier models fail on your tasks.

This is a full-time W-2 employment position with Cincinnatus LLC, with the opportunity to be placed at a leading AI lab as part of their extended workforce. This role is fully remote within the United States, at approximately 35 hours per week.

Key Responsibilities

• Design tasks: Create realistic, multi-step software engineering challenges — the kind of work you'd actually do on the job — that push the limits of today's best AI coding agents.
• Build reference solutions: Solve your own tasks in Python, with the setup and checks needed so each task has a clear, verifiable answer.
• Work with AI tools: Use AI coding assistants as part of your everyday workflow, and observe where they help and where they fall short.
• Review and refine: Look over tasks built by fellow experts and share feedback on clarity, correctness, and difficulty.
• Learn from failures: See how AI agents attempted your tasks and help the research team understand what tripped them up.

Core Qualifications

• MSc or PhD in computer science or another STEM field, or equivalent practical experience in a research-heavy domain requiring significant coding and data analysis.
• 1+ years of experience in a research, research-engineering, or software engineering role.
• Strong hands-on Python scripting and debugging skills, with clean-code habits and attention to readability.
• Everyday fluency with version control (Git), IDEs, and standard software development workflows.
• Experience with AI coding assistants, prompt engineering, or agent workflows is preferred.
• Past experience in AI training, model evaluation, or benchmark/task authoring is preferred.
• A perfectionist mindset: high attention to detail, creativity in task design, strong written communication, and the ability to work independently through ambiguous, open-ended problems.
• Ability to engage reliably for approximately 35 hours per week.

About Cincinnatus LLC

Cincinnatus LLC is an enterprise staffing company that partners with leading technology companies to source and employ highly skilled professionals for contingent and contract-based opportunities. Cincinnatus serves as the employer of record for these engagements, providing W-2 employment, payroll, benefits, and compliance, while placing employees directly within client teams to work on high-impact initiatives.

Roles hired through Cincinnatus are not project-based or freelance engagements. They are structured, role-based positions that typically involve part-time or full-time commitments, close collaboration with a client's internal teams, and integration into standard enterprise workflows.

Cincinnatus is a legal entity separate from Mercor. While opportunities may be discovered through Mercor's platform, employment, onboarding, payroll, and benefits for these roles are administered by Cincinnatus LLC.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Cincinnatus is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, reproductive health decisions, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, genetic information, political views or activity, or any other legally protected characteristic.

Cincinnatus is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans throughout the job application process.

We consider all qualified applicants without regard to legally protected characteristics and provide reasonable accommodations upon request.