Mercor · STEM & research
LLM Research Scientist (Pre-training & Post-Training)
Listed on Mercor as “LLM Research Scientist (Pre-training & Post-Training)”
What this actually is
You design problems that stump current AI models, evaluate AI reasoning against the correct answer, write rubrics, and provide expert feedback. Often the highest-paid category because the expertise pool is small. The platform title (LLM Research Scientist (Pre-training & Post-Training)) 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 experienced machine learning researchers with hands-on experience training and improving language models end-to-end. You'll work on well-scoped empirical open-ended LLM research problems.
**Responsibilities**
- Train transformer-based language models from scratch and fine-tune open-weight models.
- Get the most out of limited data and compute.
- Construct training corpora from raw web-scale sources.
- Build post-training pipelines.
- Diagnose and resolve training issues.
**Requirements**
We are looking for candidates with strong expertise in one or more of the following areas:
Foundation Model Pre-training
Experience with:
- Training transformer-based language models from scratch, end-to-end.
- Data- and compute-constrained regimes: allocating a fixed budget across model size, tokens, and epochs.
- Diagnosing optimisation failures, convergence issues, and training instabilities.
Pre-training Data
Experience with:
- Corpus construction from raw web crawls and other large unfiltered sources.
- Data filtering, deduplication, quality classification, and mixture/ordering optimisation.
- Measuring data interventions rigorously.
LLM Post-Training
Hands-on experience with one or more of:
- Supervised fine-tuning, including building your own datasets via synthetic generation, noisy or weak supervision, and rejection sampling.
- Preference optimisation (DPO, RLHF, RLAIF) and reward modelling / human-preference prediction.
- Alignment fine-tuning: shaping refusal behaviour, truthfulness, and unbiased reasoning while preserving general capability.
- Fine-tuning for narrow, verifiable domains (math, code, games, structured prediction) where outputs can be checked programmatically.
Additional Areas of Interest
Experience in any of the following is a plus:
- Scaling laws and training-efficiency research.
- Curriculum learning and data ordering.
- LLM evaluation: benchmark construction, contamination control, statistically sound comparisons.
- Reinforcement learning for language models.
- Model alignment and AI safety.
General Qualifications
- 3+ years of machine learning research experience (PhD research counts toward this requirement).
- Strong experience with PyTorch, JAX, TensorFlow, or similar ML frameworks.
- Degree from a top-100 university, experience at a FAANG or comparable AI company, or an equivalent research track record through publications or impactful open-source contributions.
**Why Join**
- Work on cutting-edge foundation model research.
- Collaborate with leading AI researchers on challenging, high-impact projects.
- Flexible, project-based work with competitive compensation.
Quoted from Mercor’s public listing on 2026-07-21. We don’t edit platform copy; honest framing is in the title and the “what this actually is” block above.
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About Mercor
AI-interview-based talent network. One application, voice interview with their AI, then matched to projects across coding, research, and specialist work. Pay scales with track and seniority.
Mercor review: AI-interview talent network
4.1/5 on Glassdoor, fastest-growing platform in the category (+509% YoY). What the AI video interview actually asks, real pay across coding/research/medical/legal/finance tracks ($25-$200/hr), and the project-availability problem.
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