Remote SWE (Terminal and CLI Dev Tools Focused) - AI Trainer ($75-$80 per hour)

• Mercor is hiring experienced Software Engineers to support high-impact research collaborations with leading AI labs. Freelancers will evaluate and compare the performance of AI-powered CLI coding agents on real-world infrastructure debugging tasks.

This is a unique opportunity to apply your systems engineering expertise toward producing rigorous comparative analyses that directly inform product decisions at frontier AI companies. ### About the Project You'll solve TerminalBench tasks : real-world broken infrastructure scenarios running inside Docker containers. You'll use AI CLI agents to help you. Each task presents a failing system (databases, networking, security, pipelines) that you must diagnose and fix by writing a bash script, guided by AI agents in turn. ### Key Responsibilities - Solve the same infrastructure debugging task with CLI-based AI coding agent - Diagnose broken systems inside Docker containers (databases, TLS, pipelines, replication, access control) - Write bash scripts that fix the root cause and survive service restarts - Compare agents' approaches and rank their performance after each task ### Ideal Qualifications - 3+ years of experience in software engineering, with hands-on debugging of systems and infrastructure - Strong bash / shell scripting proficiency : you'll be writing non-trivial fix scripts from scratch - Docker and containerization experience : every task runs inside a Docker container you'll need to explore via `docker exec` - Infrastructure and systems debugging skills : experience with PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, nginx, TLS, systemd, log analysis, or similar - Familiarity with version control workflows (Git, PRs, issue tracking) - Experience with AI coding tools (Copilot, Cursor, Claude, or similar) is a plus : you need to effectively prompt and evaluate AI output, not just code yourself ### Project Timeline - Start Date : Immediate - Duration : 1-2 weeks - Commitment : Part-time (15-25 hours / week, with flexibility up to 40 hours / week) ### Application & Onboarding Process 1. Upload your resume 2. AI interview : A short, 15-minute conversational session to understand your background, experience, and interest in the role 3. Follow-up communication within a few days with next steps and onboarding details Apply today and leverage your systems engineering expertise to help evaluate the next generation of AI coding agents! This is a pay-per-task opportunity for writers. Eligible promotion to reviewers on a need basis.