What the work involves

You write single-turn prompts in your own domain and label each one benign, dual-use, or adversarial — a routine dose-rate question, a shielding calculation that could serve a worker or hide a source, a request that only makes sense if someone is trying to move Category 1 material without detection. You then read the model's response, judge it against a written policy standard, and record whether the model handled it correctly. Over-refusal counts as failure here: a model that won't answer a nuclear medicine technologist's question about Tc-99m handling is broken in the same way as one that explains source defeat. Each item also needs a reference answer — what a correct response should have said, and the technical reasoning behind it, written so a non-specialist reviewer can follow the logic without a health physics background.

What the platform screens for

Mercor's screen is looking for custody and accountability, not adjacency. The strong profiles have held the licence of record, run assay and contamination control at a high-hazard site, assessed how sources actually get stolen or shielded, or produced and handled medical isotopes. Expect follow-ups that test whether you can name isotopes, activities, regulatory categories and real decision points from memory rather than describing programs in the abstract. Writing is weighted heavily — prior technical writing, published work, or expert witness experience is a strong signal, and you should have a sample or link ready. Red-teaming experience helps but is not the gate; domain judgment on the dual-use line is.

Practical logistics

  • Fully remote and asynchronous; task-based rather than shift-based, with observed pay in the $65–75 per task range and no guaranteed volume.
  • Most contributors work in sustained blocks — prompt writing and rationale drafting do not split well into fifteen-minute gaps.
  • The material is misuse-focused by design. Mercor briefs experts on this in advance and you can pause or withdraw at any point without penalty.

A hard constraint

Nothing you produce may involve or draw on classified or export-controlled information, or anything under an NDA or prepublication review obligation. Holding such obligations does not disqualify you — but you must disclose them in the application so the work can be scoped around them.