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Propulsion & Effects Engineer
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About the Role
Mercor is assembling a panel of energetic materials and propulsion experts to red-team frontier AI models. The goal is to test whether a model can correctly judge the misuse potential of a technical request — answering legitimate questions fully while refusing genuinely dangerous ones.
What You'll Do
- Write challenging single-turn prompts in your domain, labelled across three levels: benign, dual-use, and adversarial.
- Evaluate the responses that come back against a defined policy standard, and judge whether each was handled correctly.
- Write the reference answer — what a correct response looks like, and the technical reasoning for why.
- This domain lives on the dual-use line more than most. The same propulsion analysis that qualifies a motor for flight describes a capability; the same safe-and-arm logic that keeps a system inert is the part someone would want to defeat. A model that refuses a routine performance or qualification question is failing as badly as one that answers a question it shouldn't. Drawing that line reliably is why we need practitioners rather than generalists.
You're a Good Fit If You
- This is the engineering half of the domain: we're looking for people who have designed, qualified or tested propulsion and initiation systems, with real hardware and real test data behind them. What matters most is being able to tell a routine professional question from one that's fishing for something else: the same effects model that sizes a safety standoff also sizes an intent. You will be writing prompts that sit exactly on that line, then judging whether the model held it.
- Examples of relevant backgrounds (ideally with red-teaming experience):
- Munitions or warhead design and effects engineering
- Solid, liquid or hybrid propulsion system design, test and qualification
- Terminal effects modelling — blast, fragmentation, penetration
- Fuzing, safe-and-arm and initiation system engineering
- Test range engineering and instrumentation for propulsion or ordnance
- What this role demands beyond technical depth
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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