Theoretical Physicist - Trajectory Expert

About the job

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.

Position: PhD Physicist — Frontier Reasoning Trajectory Writer
Type: Contract
Compensation: $80–$120/hour
Location: Remote
Commitment: 15 hours/week

Role Responsibilities

• Produce "golden trajectories" for hard physics problems with complete, step-by-step solutions.
• Work in Studio and iterate with a frontier LLM to draft and refine reasoning.
• Develop trajectories clean enough to use as training data.
• Evaluate problems screened by a frontier LLM requiring failure at least once.
• Work independently and asynchronously to meet deadlines.

Qualifications

Must-Have

• PhD in physics or in the final 1–2 years of a PhD program.
• Daily-driver fluency in LaTeX and Python.
• Comfort with iterative LLM workflows.
• Detail-oriented; comfortable producing publication-grade derivations.

Application Process (Takes 20–30 mins to complete)

• Submit your application.
• Complete the short technical assessment.
• Strong applicants will be invited to a follow-up interview.

Resources & Support

• For details about the interview process and platform information, please check: https://talent.docs.mercor.com/welcome
• For any help or support, reach out to: [email protected]

PS: Our team reviews applications daily. Please complete your AI interview and application steps to be considered for this opportunity.