Engineering Manager, Applied AI

About Mercor

Mercor’s mission is to organize human intelligence for the AI economy. We build the infrastructure that enables frontier AI labs and enterprises to train, evaluate, and improve AI on real-world professional work. More than five million experts have joined our network, and we pay out over $5 million daily for their knowledge and expertise.

We built our training and evaluation infrastructure alongside the world’s leading AI labs. Now, we’re bringing those capabilities to enterprises across industries, enabling them to train, evaluate, and improve AI using their own expertise and standards. Our APEX benchmarks measure how AI performs on economically valuable work, while our enterprise evaluations and post-training capabilities turn those insights into measurable improvements across real-world workflows.

Our work sits at the intersection of frontier AI, human expertise, and real-world application. We’re solving problems few companies have encountered, with the opportunity to influence what the world’s most advanced AI systems become capable of doing. We’re looking for people who bring different perspectives, take ownership, exercise sound judgment, and hold themselves to an exceptionally high standard. You’ll have the opportunity to do consequential work alongside talented colleagues who challenge one another, collaborate openly, and share a commitment to excellence.

Mercor is profitable and recently raised a $750 million Series D at a $20 billion valuation. We work in person five days a week in San Francisco, New York, and London.

About the Role

We’re hiring Engineering Managers to lead teams within our Applied AI organization.

Applied AI builds systems that directly improve model quality, including evaluation infrastructure, annotation products, and emerging multimodal capabilities. You’ll lead a team of engineers, partner with product and research, and help define how Mercor stays at the frontier of AI.

You will also build partnerships with leading AI labs and directly contribute to improving the quality of frontier models through data, evaluation, and systems.

This role requires high ownership and abstraction: setting direction, driving outcomes, and staying hands-on while leading.

What You’ll Work On

Build and scale teams

• Manage and grow a team of 6–10 engineers
• Coach and develop high-potential engineers
• Establish strong ownership, culture, and execution standards
• Shape the team: define hiring processes, establish engineering practices, and scale a high-performing team from the ground up

Drive Applied AI systems and outcomes

• Drive insights and methodology behind evaluation systems that benchmark and improve model performance
• Lead development while driving improvements in data quality, operational efficiency, system stability, and scalability
• Scale products that generate high-quality training data and improve human-in-the-loop workflows

Own technical direction

• Lead system design for complex AI systems
• Stay close to the technical work and guide engineers through ambiguous problems
• Translate high-level AI goals into clear engineering roadmaps and execution plans

Operate across a broad scope

• Partner with product, research, operations, and external AI labs
• Work across systems, data insights, and custom partnerships to drive model quality

Shape the organization

• Introduce lightweight processes as the organization scales
• Hire and develop strong engineering talent
• Help define engineering management at Mercor

What We’re Looking For

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or a related technical degree such as Electrical Engineering, Physics, Mathematics or Statistics
• 6–10 years in engineering; 2–3+ years managing teams
• Strong background in building scalable systems
• Ability to lead in ambiguous environments with sound technical judgment
• Proven ability to coach engineers and drive execution
• Strong ownership mindset with pragmatic decision-making

Who Thrives Here

• We’re looking for engineering leaders who take ownership in ambiguous environments, make pragmatic decisions, and consistently deliver measurable impact.

Success Metrics

• Build high-performing, well-supported teams
• Hire and retain strong engineers
• Improve team velocity and execution quality
• Contribute to systems that measurably improve model performance

Location

• San Francisco (preferred) or New York
• Relocation assistance will be provided as needed

Why This Role

• Direct impact on frontier AI development
• Build partnerships with leading AI labs and shape how frontier models improve
• High ownership across team, systems, and hiring
• Opportunity to shape a rapidly scaling organization
• Work at the intersection of engineering, product, data, and AI

Benefits:

• Generous equity grant vested over 4 years
• Health, dental, and vision insurance
• 401(k) with company match
• Unlimited paid vacation and sick days
• Parental leave for birthing and non-birthing parents
• Free mental health services
• $200 monthly wellness reimbursement
• $1.5K monthly meal stipend
• $200 monthly laundry reimbursement
• Free Equinox membership
• Up to $15K relocation bonus

Mercor is an Equal Opportunity Employer and is committed to providing equal opportunity to all employees and applicants. Mercor does not discriminate based on actual or perceived race, color, creed, religion, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, age, sex or gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, related medical conditions and lactation), gender identity or gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, military service and veteran status, disability, protected medical condition as defined by California or local law, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, California, or local laws and ordinances. Further, Mercor prohibits discrimination, harassment, and retaliation based on any combination of protected characteristics. This Policy applies to all areas of employment, including recruitment, hiring, training, promotion, compensation, benefits, discipline, termination, and all other privileges, terms, and conditions of employment. This Policy and the law prohibit employment discrimination against any employee or applicant based on any legally protected status.