STEM Researcher — Computational Fields Full-time NEW

STEM Researcher — Computational Fields

$60-$90 per hour W2 Contingent Role 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.

A leading AI lab is building the next generation of agentic evaluation benchmarks for frontier models and is recruiting researchers from computational STEM fields — as well as computationally heavy social sciences and humanities — to bring working-researcher rigor to benchmark design. You will translate the scientific method — experimental design, hypothesis testing, and rigorous evaluation — into complex, multi-step tasks that today's best models cannot yet complete reliably.

Each task represents one to two days of continuous, focused effort and spans multiple skills: study design, implementation in code, data analysis, and careful written conclusions. You will work in a tight feedback loop with the lab's researchers, surfacing the kinds of methodological mistakes a working researcher would catch immediately.

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: Turn the research skills you use every day — designing studies, testing hypotheses, evaluating results — into engaging, multi-step tasks.
• Author solutions: Work through your own tasks in Python and notebooks, at the level of rigor you'd expect from a careful colleague.
• Define what good looks like: Help spell out what separates sound scientific reasoning from reasoning that merely sounds right.
• Evaluate models: Review model attempts at your tasks and flag the mistakes a working researcher would spot right away.
• Work as a team: Compare notes with researchers and fellow experts to keep evaluations consistent and accurate.

Core Qualifications

• MSc or PhD in a STEM field, or in a computational social-science or humanities discipline, or equivalent practical experience in a research-heavy domain requiring data analysis and coding.
• 1+ years of experience in an active research role (academia, industry, or national labs).
• Your own research involves significant computational work: Python-based analysis, simulation, modeling, or data pipelines.
• Strong grounding in experimental design, hypothesis testing, and rigorous evaluation of results.
• Working familiarity with Git, IDEs, and notebook environments (Jupyter or Colab).
• 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.