Engineering Manager, Applied AI

About Mercor

Mercor's mission is to organize human intelligence to power the AI economy. We partner with leading AI labs and enterprises to provide the human intelligence essential to AI development. Our vast talent network trains frontier AI models in the same way teachers teach students: by sharing knowledge, experience, and context that can't be captured in code alone. Today, more than 30,000 experts in our network collectively earn over $3 million a day.

Mercor is creating a new category of work where expertise powers AI advancement. Achieving this requires an ambitious, fast-paced and deeply committed team. You’ll work alongside researchers, operators, and AI companies at the forefront of shaping the systems that are redefining society. Mercor is a profitable Series C company valued at $10 billion. We work in-person five days a week in our San Francisco, NYC, or London offices.
About the Role
We’re hiring Engineering Managers to lead teams within our Applied AI organization.

Applied AI builds systems that directly improve model quality, including evaluation infrastructure, annotation products, and emerging multimodal capabilities. You’ll lead a team of engineers, partner with product and research, and help define how Mercor stays at the frontier of AI.

You will also build partnerships with leading AI labs and directly contribute to improving the quality of frontier models through data, evaluation, and systems.

This role requires high ownership and abstraction: setting direction, driving outcomes, and staying hands-on while leading.

What You’ll Work OnBuild and scale teams

Manage and grow a team of 6–10 engineers

Coach and develop high-potential engineers

Establish strong ownership, culture, and execution standards

Shape the team: define hiring processes, establish engineering practices, and scale a high-performing team from the ground up

Drive Applied AI systems and outcomes

Drive insights and methodology behind evaluation systems that benchmark and improve model performance

Lead development while driving improvements in data quality, operational efficiency, system stability, and scalability

Scale products that generate high-quality training data and improve human-in-the-loop workflows

Own technical direction

Lead system design for complex AI systems

Stay close to the technical work and guide engineers through ambiguous problems

Translate high-level AI goals into clear engineering roadmaps and execution plans

Operate across a broad scope

Partner with product, research, operations, and external AI labs

Work across systems, data insights, and custom partnerships to drive model quality

Shape the organization

Introduce lightweight processes as the organization scales

Hire and develop strong engineering talent

Help define engineering management at Mercor

What We’re Looking For

6–10 years in engineering; 2–3+ years managing teams

Strong background in building scalable systems

Ability to lead in ambiguous environments with sound technical judgment

Proven ability to coach engineers and drive execution

Strong ownership mindset with pragmatic decision-making

Who Thrives Here

We’re looking for engineering leaders who take ownership in ambiguous environments, make pragmatic decisions, and consistently deliver measurable impact.

Success Metrics

Build high-performing, well-supported teams

Hire and retain strong engineers

Improve team velocity and execution quality

Contribute to systems that measurably improve model performance

Location

San Francisco (preferred) or New York

Relocation assistance will be provided as needed

Why This Role

Direct impact on frontier AI development

Build partnerships with leading AI labs and shape how frontier models improve

High ownership across team, systems, and hiring

Opportunity to shape a rapidly scaling organization

Work at the intersection of engineering, product, data, and AI

Benefits

Bi-annual performance bonus structure

Generous equity grant vested…