PERFORMANCE ENGINEER - AI SYSTEMS

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: Performance Engineer (C++, Python, Rust) Type: Contract Compensation: $70–$110/hour Location: Remote Commitment: 40 hours/week Role Responsibilities • Guide research and engineering teams to close knowledge gaps and improve AI model performance in systems-level optimization, compiler engineering, and runtime performance topics. • Design challenging, domain-relevant tasks across multiple specializations, and write accurate and well-structured solutions to performance engineering problems. • Evaluate performance engineering tasks and solutions and provide clear, written technical feedback. • Develop guidelines and detailed rubrics/evaluation frameworks to assess systems design quality across AI workloads . • Collaborate with other subject matter experts to ensure consistency and accuracy in training data. Qualifications Must-Have • 2+ years of dedicated professional experience in performance engineering, systems programming, or low-level optimization. • Deep hands-on expertise in at least one of the following: C++, Python, or Rust — with working familiarity across the others being a strong plus. • Demonstrable track record of measurable performance improvements on production systems (e.g., latency reduction, throughput gains, memory footprint optimization). • Demonstrable career progression. • Ability to engage reliably for at least 40 hours/week during weekdays. • Strong written communication skills and the ability to explain complex technical decisions clearly. Application Process (Takes 20–30 mins to complete) • Upload resume • AI interview based on your resume • Submit form 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.