Chemistry Specialist, Synthetic & Analytical Chemistry

Listed on Mercor ↗

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About the Role

This is a part-time position through Cincinnatus LLC (or an appropriate international entity), with the opportunity to be placed at a leading AI Lab as part of their extended workforce. Cincinnatus LLC is an enterprise staffing company that partners with leading technology companies to source and employ highly skilled professionals for contingent and contract-based opportunities. Cincinnatus, or an appropriate international entity, serves as the employer of record for these engagements, providing employment, payroll, benefits, and compliance, while placing employees directly within client teams to work on high-impact initiatives.

What You'll Do

• Guide research and engineering teams to close knowledge gaps and improve AI model performance in synthetic chemistry, reaction mechanisms, structure elucidation, and physical-chemical property reasoning.
• Design challenging, non-searchable chemistry tasks, benchmarks and training data, and write accurate, well-structured solutions to problems such as multi-step route design, reaction optimization and spectroscopic characterization.
• Evaluate AI model outputs and step-by-step reasoning on chemistry tasks, diagnosing errors in chemical logic, tool usage and factual accuracy, and provide clear, written technical feedback.
• Develop specifications, grading rubrics and verification processes for chemistry data produced by external technical teams, and act as the domain authority on data quality.
• Advise on experimental design, common lab failure modes, and the chemical validity of model outputs, including molecular representations such as SMILES.
• Collaborate with other subject matter experts to ensure consistency and accuracy in training data.

You're a Good Fit If You

• PhD in chemistry (synthetic, organic, medicinal, analytical, physical or a closely related discipline), or equivalent research experience.
• 3+ years of hands-on chemistry experience at a recognized organization, such as a pharmaceutical, biotech, chemical or materials company, a contract research organization, or a university research group.
• Hands-on experience in small-molecule synthesis, including designing and running multi-step routes and optimizing reactions.
• Practical experience characterizing compounds with analytical techniques such as NMR, mass spectrometry, IR and HPLC / LC-MS, and interpreting the resulting data.
• Comfortable using cheminformatics and scientific AI tools (no coding required).
• Ability to engage reliably for at least 20 hours/week during weekdays.
• Strong written communication skills and the ability to explain complex technical decisions clearly.
• Nice to have: experience with cheminformatics representations (SMILES / SMARTS), writing grading rubrics, designing benchmarks, or evaluating scientific AI models or agents.

Role Highlights

Pay & Payout

Independent contractor engagement. Apply via the link below - Mercor handles onboarding and pays weekly via Stripe or Wise.

Common Questions

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