Manufacturing - Chemical Engineering Expert

Role Overview

Mercor is partnering with leading AI labs on Project Atlas — an initiative to build realistic enterprise environments that frontier AI agents are trained and evaluated in. We're seeking experienced chemical-engineering professionals from Fortune 500 chemical, petrochemical, and specialty-materials companies (e.g., Dow, DuPont, LyondellBasell, ExxonMobil Chemical, Eastman, Air Products, BASF US) to recreate the digital workspaces they run every day and design the tasks that genuinely challenge state-of-the-art AI.

You'll bring your expertise in process engineering, plant operations, R&D / scale-up, or EH&S to build a high-fidelity environment that mirrors the tools, files, and workflows of a large process-industries enterprise — and then author tasks grounded in the programs you actually run today.

Key Responsibilities

• Build a realistic digital workspace centered on the Drive folders you use day-to-day — the process flow diagrams, P&IDs, PHA / HAZOP reports, mass & energy balance models, turnaround plans, OSHA PSM documentation, and email threads that reflect how you actually organize your work — with some representation of the platforms that support it (e.g., Aspen Plus / CHEMKIN, ANSYS Fluent, Siemens Opcenter)
• Design multi-step tasks grounded in your real workflows that require navigating multiple apps, files, and stakeholders in a way that meaningfully challenges frontier AI agents
• Collaborate with other chemical-engineering experts in your field to design the environment, shape task scope, and review each other's scenarios for realism and rigor
• Work asynchronously with research teams to refine task designs and evaluation criteria for chemical-process agent benchmarks
• Contribute to frontier AI research and benchmarking — the work you produce directly informs how leading labs train and evaluate the next generation of AI systems

Ideal Qualifications

• BS / MS / PhD in Chemical Engineering or related discipline
• 3+ years of full-time experience at a Fortune 500 chemical, petrochemical, or specialty-materials company, or major engineering / EPC firm
• Background in one or more areas such as:
  • Process design, simulation, or scale-up
  • Plant operations, operations engineering, or turnaround planning
  • Process safety (PHA / HAZOP, PSM under 29 CFR 1910.119)
  • R&D or product development
  • EH&S, emissions compliance, or sustainability engineering
• PE license a plus
• Day-to-day use of CHEMKIN / Aspen Plus, ANSYS Fluent / STAR-CCM+, and Siemens Opcenter or Rockwell FactoryTalk
• Strong analytical thinking and writing — able to translate process-industry workflows into structured task specs

Compensation Note

• Task Completion Pay: Competitive and based on task quality (~$900 – $1,250 per completed task, subject to change as the project evolves)
• Performance Bonus: Top performers receive a weekly bonus incentive on top of their per task rate!
• Hourly Opportunity: Top performers may be invited to transition to an hourly compensation model based on sustained quality and throughput.