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Cybersecurity Research Expert – Offensive Security & Vulnerability Research - review AI outputs in your specialty

Listed on Mercor as “Cybersecurity Research Expert - Offensive Security & Vulnerability Research

$200-$250/hrRemoteContractPaid in USD
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What this actually is

You bring your specialist expertise to AI evaluation. The shape of the work varies but the pattern is the same: review outputs, rate quality, write prompts, flag errors. The platform title (Cybersecurity Research Expert - Offensive Security & Vulnerability Research) reflects the rate band and the expertise required, not the day-to-day work.

Can you do this on your visa?

F-2 / F-4 / F-5 / F-6: open. E-1 to E-7: needs concurrent-employment permit. D-2 / D-4 students: S-3 permit, 20 hr/week cap. D-10 / D-8: case by case.

Korean tax on USD income

First 5 years in Korea: foreign-source income only taxed if remitted into Korea. After year 5: worldwide income. Full tax guide.

Original posting from Mercor

We're looking for highly accomplished Cybersecurity Research Experts to help evaluate cutting-edge AI systems in advanced security reasoning, vulnerability analysis, exploit development, and secure software engineering. This project is ideal for practitioners with a strong track record in offensive security research and publicly recognised technical contributions.

What You'll Do

  • Evaluate AI-generated analyses of complex cybersecurity scenarios, exploits, and vulnerability reports.
  • Review technical writeups for correctness, exploitability, and mitigation quality.
  • Validate vulnerability root-cause analysis across software, operating systems, networking, cloud, and web applications.
  • Provide structured feedback on security reasoning, exploit chains, and defensive recommendations.
  • Contribute to benchmark development for advanced AI security capabilities.

Ideal Background

We are looking for candidates with multiple of the following credentials:

  • Member of a top-ranked Capture The Flag (CTF) team with demonstrated competitive achievements.
  • Discoverer or co-author of CVEs affecting widely used open-source or commercial software.
  • Publicly recognised bug bounty researcher with findings accepted by major programs (e.g., Google, Microsoft, Apple, Meta, GitHub, Mozilla, Chromium, Kubernetes, Linux Foundation, etc.).
  • Research experience at a well-respected security laboratory or academic research group (e.g., KAIST Security Lab, SSLab, university security research groups, or equivalent industry research organisations).
  • Author of high-quality security research publications, conference papers, or widely cited technical writeups.
  • Strong understanding of exploit development, reverse engineering, binary analysis, vulnerability research, operating systems, networks, web security, or cryptography.

Preferred Qualifications

  • Professional experience in offensive security, application security, vulnerability research, product security, or security engineering.
  • Experience with reverse engineering tools such as IDA Pro, Ghidra, Binary Ninja, or Radare2.
  • Familiarity with fuzzing, symbolic execution, static analysis, or dynamic analysis frameworks.
  • Experience with Linux internals, Windows internals, browser security, cloud security, embedded security, or mobile security.
  • Strong programming skills in C/C++, Rust, Python, Go, or Java.
  • Excellent written communication and ability to explain complex security concepts clearly.

Nice to Have

  • Hall of Fame recognition from major bug bounty programs.
  • Black Hat, DEF CON, USENIX Security, IEEE S&P, ACM CCS, NDSS, or similar conference presentations/publications.
  • Maintainer or significant contributor to well-known open-source security tools.
  • Offensive Security certifications (OSCP, OSEP, OSCE3), GIAC certifications, or equivalent credentials.

Why Join?

  • Work on frontier AI models tackling real-world cybersecurity problems.
  • Collaborate with leading researchers on advanced security evaluation tasks.
  • Help shape the next generation of AI systems for cybersecurity.

Quoted from Mercor’s public listing on 2026-08-04. We don’t edit platform copy; honest framing is in the title and the “what this actually is” block above.