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Mercor

Software Engineer, Platform

San Francisco
Salary
$160K - $500K
Level
Mid
Work type
On-site · San Francisco

Not stated in the posting: visa.

Open. First seen 9 September 2026.

About the role

About Mercor

Mercor's mission is to organize human intelligence to power the AI economy. We're a leading AI data company, building the layer between human expertise and frontier models. Millions of domain experts on the platform are paid over $4 million per day to train frontier AI models. Mercor's APEX benchmark family measures AI's real-world impact on professional work. Mercor Enterprise brings this same infrastructure to Fortune 500 companies: helping companies capture how their best people actually work, translating that expertise directly back into agents.

Mercor is creating a new category of work where expertise powers AI advancement. Achieving this requires an ambitious, fast-paced and deeply committed team. You’ll work alongside researchers, operators, and AI companies at the forefront of shaping the systems that are redefining society. Mercor is a profitable Series C company valued at $10 billion. We work in-person five days a week in our San Francisco, NYC, or London offices.

About Mercor

Mercor is defining the future of work. We partner with leading AI labs and enterprises to provide the human intelligence essential to AI development.

Our vast talent network trains frontier AI models in the same way teachers teach students: by sharing knowledge, experience, and context that can't be captured in code alone. Today, more than 30,000 experts in our network collectively earn over $2 million a day.

Mercor's standard text

Mercor is creating a new category of work where expertise powers AI advancement. Achieving this requires an ambitious, fast-paced and deeply committed team. You’ll work alongside researchers, operators, and AI companies at the forefront of shaping the systems that are redefining society.

Mercor is a profitable Series C company valued at $10 billion. We work in-person five days a week in our new San Francisco headquarters.

About the Role

As a Backend Engineer at Mercor, you will build core platform systems that make our operations secure, reliable, and scalable. This role focuses on two critical areas: Contracts and Identity & Access.

  • Contracts: Build the backend infrastructure that enables flexible ways for our network of Experts to perform work and get paid. This work expands our product capabilities and supports the development of higher-quality foundational models.
  • Identity & Access: Design and maintain systems that provision and deprovision access just-in-time, ensuring Experts can securely perform a wide range of tasks across the platform.

You’ll work on foundational systems that sit at the heart of Mercor’s platform, requiring strong ownership, sound architectural judgment, and a focus on security and reliability.

This role is a strong fit for a generalist backend engineer who enjoys building core systems end-to-end. Experience with identity systems or enterprise access management is a strong plus.

You will:

  • Develop robust infrastructure for platform operations, including systems that support complex contract-related workflows, payouts, fraud, and more.
  • Work closely with engineering leads and cross-functional partners to translate operational needs into reliable, scalable backend services.
  • Improve security, reliability, and developer ergonomics across the systems that underpin Mercor's platform.
  • Contribute to a fast-moving engineering organization where strong backend engineers may flex across teams and high-priority platform initiatives.

What We're Looking For

  • 2+ years experience building building production systems at scale.
  • Experience with identity, access control, or enterprise access management systems is a strong plus.
  • Ability to work across ambiguous requirements and deliver practical, reliable systems quickly.
  • High ownership mindset and willingness to work on foundational problems that support many parts of the business.

Why Mercor

  • Impact: Your work will strengthen the core systems that power Mercor's platform and enable secure, scalable operations.
  • Breadth: You'll work on foundational backend problems with exposure to identity, security, internal tooling, and platform infrastructure.
  • Growth: You'll join a fast-moving team with significant ownership and room to expand into increasingly critical technical challenges.

Benefits

  • Bi-annual performance bonus structure
  • Generous equity grant vested over 4 years
  • Up to $15k Relocation bonus
  • $10K housing bonus (if you live within 0.5 miles of our office)
  • $1.5K monthly stipend for meals
  • Free Equinox membership
  • $200 monthly laundry reimbursement
  • $200 monthly personal wellness reimbursement
  • Health, Dental, Vision insurance

What this role asks for

94% of this description is written for the role. The rest is Mercor's standard text, folded away below.

Read against Mercor's other open postings on this site.

The team: Core Engineering HIRES STEADILY

This role is one of 22 open in Core Engineering. 1 was posted in the last 30 days and the oldest in September: a team that hires all year rather than one being built.

WHAT THE TEAM WORKS WITH, ACROSS ITS POSTINGS

Python (12 of 22), LLM (10 of 22), PostgreSQL (8 of 22), GitHub (5 of 22), Kubernetes (5 of 22), Machine Learning (5 of 22), TypeScript (5 of 22)

OTHER ROLES ON THIS TEAM

From the team and dates on Mercor's own job board.

Salary context

10 other open postings titled Software Engineer, Platform state a salary: median USD 190,000 to USD 318,500 a year.

See Software Engineer salaries in San Francisco →

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