Role brief
Job description
Current Mercor opportunity: Materials Science Expert appeared in the live Mercor Explore catalog and was rechecked from the current role page on 2026-09-18.
The research teams behind the best-known AI models come to Mercor for materials science judgment they can't generate on their own. Your standards and expertise become the rubric that frontier AI is graded against.
This is a standing listing for materials scientists who want AI training and evaluation work, not a specific job opening. It stays open whether or not a matching project is running this week.
New projects start on short notice, so instead of posting and pulling a listing each time, we keep one open per field and draw from it when one begins.
What the work looks like
We match materials scientists in the network to projects like:
- Writing a materials problem from work you have done, with the system, the processing history, and the property target, plus the reference answer a model's attempt gets graded against
- Grading model-written structure-property reasoning: whether the microstructure explains the property, whether the characterization supports the claim, whether the processing window is realistic
- Flagging where a model's proposed material meets the spec on paper and fails in service, given fatigue, corrosion, thermal cycling, or what can actually be manufactured
Past rates have run $60 to $120 an hour, set per project by scope and depth.
What we're looking for
- A graduate degree in materials science or a related field, with research or industrial experience
- Clear written communication, since most of the work involves explaining your reasoning
- Comfort with ambiguous tasks, and willingness to flag unclear instructions
Where you trained matters less than whether you processed and characterized the material yourself, recently enough to explain the calls you made.
How it works
Apply here with your resume and confirm where you work from, then take a short AI interview, about 20 minutes total.
We verify your background and add you to the materials science pool.
When a project needs materials science expertise, we invite matching people from the pool to that specific listing. It names the rate, the hours, and the client, and any hiring decision is made there.
What to expect
This listing does not accept or reject candidates, so you will not get a decision on it. We reach out when a project matches your background. Depending on what our clients are running, that can be within a week or several months.
Finishing the domain expert interview and joining every network you qualify for both improve your odds of being matched. You only need to sign up once to be eligible across all of them.
Current source check: Active on Mercor as of 2026-09-18. Confirm pay, hours, location eligibility, and screening steps in Mercor’s application flow.
Apply through the Mercor link in this listing. WorkAppily is not the hiring employer and does not control role availability or hiring decisions.