Vehicle Design Specialist

About the role

This opportunity is with Mercor, a company that links highly skilled creative and technical professionals with AI research organizations. The team is based in San Francisco and is backed by Benchmark, General Catalyst, Peter Thiel, Adam D'Angelo, Larry Summers, and Jack Dorsey.

Position overview

The opening is for a Manufacturing / Automotive / Mechanical Engineering expert who can help design realistic benchmark environments for frontier AI systems. The work is remote and contract-based.

What you will work on

• Create a believable digital work environment built around the Drive folders you use in day-to-day work, including items such as design review files, DFMEA/PFMEA documents, PPAP packages, tolerance studies, benchmarking presentations, test reports, and email exchanges.
• Develop multi-step assignments that mirror authentic workflows and require movement across several applications, files, and stakeholders so they are challenging for advanced AI agents.
• Partner with fellow automotive engineering specialists to define the environment, refine the scope of each task, and check that scenarios remain realistic and technically demanding.
• Coordinate asynchronously with research teams to improve task design and the criteria used to evaluate automotive engineering agent benchmarks.
• Help advance frontier AI research and benchmarking by contributing work that influences how leading labs train and assess next-generation AI systems.

Qualifications

Applicants should hold a BS or MS in Mechanical Engineering, or a closely related field, and bring at least 3 years of full-time experience with a Fortune 500 automotive OEM or Tier-1 supplier. Suitable backgrounds include vehicle or subsystem design, CAE/CAD/simulation engineering, manufacturing or process engineering, and quality engineering. Familiarity with tools such as ANSYS Fluent or STAR-CCM+, Siemens Opcenter, or SAP S/4HANA is expected, along with strong analytical and written communication skills.

Compensation and legal

Pay is task-based at $1,150 to $1,450 per task, with compensation tied to task quality. A weekly performance bonus is available for top performers. There is also a possible move to hourly pay for contributors who maintain strong quality and throughput over time.

Application process

The application takes about 20 to 30 minutes and includes uploading a resume, completing an AI interview based on that resume, and submitting the form.

Resources and support

For information about the interview flow and platform details, applicants are directed to the provided documentation. Support is available through the listed help email.

Additional information

The hiring team reviews applications every day. Candidates are expected to finish both the AI interview and the remaining application steps to be considered for the role.