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Research Intern

mercorSan FranciscoResearch | Internships
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Salary
$80 per hour
Job type
Internship
Experience
Intern
Posted
5 Oct 2026
Status
Open · checked 7d ago

About this role

Research Intern is an internship role at mercor located in San Francisco, which suits candidates pursuing a graduate degree in computer science or related fields who want to contribute to frontier artificial intelligence systems. The position requires working in person five days a week.

Role Overview

The Research Intern position at mercor involves investigating post-training, reinforcement learning with verifiable rewards, data generation, and model evaluation. Interns formulate open-ended research questions, design controlled experiments, and conduct systematic failure analysis to improve large language model capabilities. The work supports external publications, benchmark releases, and advanced artificial intelligence development.

Key Responsibilities

Formulate research questions and design controlled experiments regarding post-training, reinforcement learning with verifiable rewards, and data quality.
Study training methods, reward-shaping, and post-training strategies including GRPO and DAPO.
Build data pipelines and research tooling for running experiments at scale.
Measure performance uplift, data usability, and evaluate datasets and scoring frameworks.
Perform systematic error analysis to uncover model failure modes.
Communicate empirical results through reports, presentations, and research artifacts.
Collaborate with applied artificial intelligence teams, research scientists, and domain experts.
Support public research outputs, benchmark releases, and research publications.

Requirements

Current enrollment in a master's or doctoral degree program in machine learning, computer science, statistics, mathematics, or a related discipline.
Proven capability to form research questions, create experiments, and interpret empirical findings.
Practical background in language model training, fine-tuning, or evaluation, agentic artificial intelligence systems, reinforcement learning environments, or benchmark development.
Minimum of one research publication or open source project.
Proficiency in Python programming for writing dependable research code.
Knowledge of statistical analysis, machine learning principles, and experimental design.
Ability to handle a fast-paced environment requiring rapid iteration and high ownership.

Nice to Have

Prior research background in reinforcement learning, language models, post-training, or model evaluation.
Familiarity with reinforcement learning with verifiable rewards, agentic systems, or reward modeling.
Papers or submissions at competitive computer science conferences such as NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, or EMNLP.
Technical reports, open-source codebases, or research papers demonstrating relevant work.

Skills and Tools

Python
GRPO
DAPO
Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Rewards
Large Language Models

Salary and Benefits

Hourly rate of $80 per hour
Monthly meal stipend of $1,500
Monthly laundry reimbursement of $200
Monthly personal wellness reimbursement of $200
Complimentary Equinox membership
Regular team events and offsites
Mentorship opportunities from experienced researchers
Potential for a full-time return offer

About the Company

Mercor is an artificial intelligence data enterprise focused on organizing human intelligence to support the artificial intelligence economy. The organization builds infrastructure connecting human expertise to frontier models and produces the APEX benchmark family. Mercor Enterprise offers this framework to Fortune 500 companies to translate human work expertise into agents. The organization operates on an in-person schedule across offices in San Francisco, New York City, and London.

How to Apply

Candidates should apply on the official company careers page.

Skills and tech stack

PythonGRPODAPOReinforcement LearningMachine LearningFine-tuning

Questions candidates ask

What is the location and work schedule for this internship?

The role is located in San Francisco and requires working in-person five days a week.

What qualifications are needed to apply?

Applicants must be currently pursuing a master's or PhD in computer science, machine learning, statistics, mathematics, or a related field, and have at least one publication or open source project along with Python programming skills.

What compensation is provided for this role?

The position pays $80 per hour.

What additional benefits are included?

Benefits include a $1,500 monthly meal stipend, $200 monthly laundry reimbursement, $200 monthly personal wellness reimbursement, a free Equinox membership, team events, and mentorship.

Is visa sponsorship available?

Visa sponsorship is not mentioned in the posting.

Ready to apply?

The application is on the official mercor careers page.

Apply on company site