C Engineer - Codebase Specialist

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: Software Engineer, C — Codebase Q&A
Type: Contract
Compensation: $130 per approved task
Location: Remote

Role Responsibilities

• Select tasks from a pre-validated pool of C repositories, each with an engineering question and a golden solution.
• Explore the repository to understand the subsystem, including relevant PR or issue history.
• Rewrite task questions to challenge frontier coding agents while ensuring clarity and fairness.
• Adjust rubrics and foils to reward correct reasoning and reject incorrect answers.
• Run the full validation loop in Mercor Studio and iterate until every stage passes.
• Document work in the task README and address reviewer feedback on returned tasks.

Qualifications

Must-Have

• 3+ years of professional software engineering experience with substantial production C.
• Ability to navigate large, unfamiliar C codebases and explain runtime behavior.
• Comfort with preprocessor-heavy builds, platform conditionals, and manual memory management.
• Experience with databases, cryptography, networking protocols, or systems programming.
• Ability to use debuggers, sanitizers, tracing, and profilers.
• Precise written English for crafting questions and rubrics.

Working Details

• Fully remote and asynchronous work with team leads across US, India, and Nigeria.
• Work is performed in Mercor Studio; time tracked with Insightful and access provisioned through Okta.
• Onboarding requires identity verification, a background check, signed Terms of Work and CIIAA, a tax form, and passing a short calibration quiz.

Application Process (Takes 20–30 mins to complete)

• Submit your resume or relevant technical background to get started.
• Qualified applicants may be asked to complete a brief technical assessment or provide additional information.

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.