Research Administration Expert - AI Trainer

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: Research Operations & Administration Expert
Type: Contract
Compensation: $1,150–$1,450/task
Location: Remote

Role Responsibilities

• Build a realistic digital workspace centered on the Drive folders you use daily. Include grant proposals, budgets, IRB/IACUC protocols, financial reports, and compliance records.
• Design multi-step tasks grounded in real workflows. Navigate multiple apps, files, and stakeholders to challenge frontier AI agents.
• Collaborate with research-operations and administration experts to design environments, shape task scope, and review scenarios for realism and rigor.
• Work asynchronously with research teams to refine task designs and evaluation criteria for research-administration agent benchmarks.
• Contribute to frontier AI research and benchmarking. Your work informs how leading labs train and evaluate the next generation of AI systems.

Qualifications

Must-Have

• 3+ years of full-time experience at a top R1 university, academic medical center, federal research agency, or large research nonprofit.
• Background in areas such as pre-award grants management, post-award financial/compliance management, sponsored-programs administration, research compliance, or core-facility operations.
• Day-to-day use of SharePoint/Box, DocuSign, Mendeley/EndNote, and ADP Workforce Now/UKG Pro.
• Strong analytical thinking and writing skills.

Preferred

• Certifications: CRA, CPRA, CFRA.

Compensation & Legal

• Task Completion Pay: Competitive and based on task quality (~$1,150 – $1,450 per completed task, subject to change).
• Performance Bonus: Top performers receive a weekly bonus incentive.
• Hourly Opportunity: Top performers may transition to an hourly compensation model based on sustained quality and throughput.

Application Process (Takes 20–30 mins to complete)

• Upload resume
• AI interview based on your resume
• Submit form

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: support@mercor.com

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