Jobs Companies Mercor Engineering Manager, Applied AI

About this Engineering Manager, Applied AI role at Mercor

Mercor · Onsite · San Francisco

About Mercor

Mercor's mission is to organize human intelligence to power the AI economy. We're a leading AI data company, building the layer between human expertise and frontier models. Millions of domain experts on the platform are paid over $4 million per day to train frontier AI models. Mercor's APEX benchmark family measures AI's real-world impact on professional work. Mercor Enterprise brings this same infrastructure to Fortune 500 companies: helping companies capture how their best people actually work, translating that expertise directly back into agents.

 

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 On

Build 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 over 4 years

  • Up to $15k Relocation bonus

  • $10K housing bonus (if you live within 0.5 miles of our office)

  • $1.5K monthly stipend for meals

  • Free Equinox membership

  • $200 monthly laundry reimbursement

  • $200 monthly personal wellness reimbursement

  • Health, Dental, Vision insurance

Ready to apply to Mercor?
Apply to Mercor

How this Engineering Manager salary compares

This role pays $325,000/yrabove the typical range for Engineering Manager roles.

$176,620 median $247,500 $352,500

Typical range $212,000–$293,000/yr, from 334 comparable Engineering Manager listings on JobsRadar (pay annualized to USD). See Engineering Manager salary insights →

Similar jobs

Mariana Minerals
Engineering Design Manager
Mariana Minerals
⚡ Apply early Houston, TX Onsite $100,000–$200,000
● New 👁 Seen ✓ Applied 3h ago
Redwood Materials
Senior Technical Program Manager, Chemical Engineering
Redwood Materials
⚡ Apply early San Francisco, California, Uni... Onsite $167,500–$220,000
● New 👁 Seen ✓ Applied 5h ago
Juicebox
Engineering Manager
Juicebox
⚡ Apply early San Francisco Onsite $250,000–$350,000
● New 👁 Seen ✓ Applied 19h ago
Assort Health
Engineering Manager - Infrastructure
Assort Health
⚡ Apply early San Francisco Hybrid $210,000–$300,000
● New 👁 Seen ✓ Applied 22h ago
Decagon
Engineering Manager, Research
Decagon
⚡ Apply early San Francisco Onsite $280,000–$430,000
● New 👁 Seen ✓ Applied 23h ago
Five9
Senior Manager, Engineering - AI Agents
Five9
⚡ Apply early San Francisco, CA (Hybrid) Hybrid $133,000–$391,500
● New 👁 Seen ✓ Applied 23h ago
Five9
Senior Manager, Sales Onboarding & Leadership Development
Five9
⚡ Apply early San Francisco, CA (Hybrid) Hybrid $96,200–$283,600
● New 👁 Seen ✓ Applied 23h ago
Sydecar
Senior Engineering Manager
Sydecar
⚡ Apply early San Francisco Office - Hybrid Hybrid $200,000–$230,000
● New 👁 Seen ✓ Applied 1d ago
Discord
Engineering Manager, Platform Security
Discord
⚡ Apply early San Francisco Bay Area Onsite
● New 👁 Seen ✓ Applied 1d ago

Sign up for suggestions tailored to the jobs you open and the searches you save.

More jobs at Mercor

See all jobs at Mercor →

Apply now
🤖

Whoa — hold up

JobsRadar was built for real people having a rough time in their job search — not for automated requests. You're clicking way too fast and you're now temporarily blocked.

Come back later. If you're genuinely job hunting, we've got your back — just act like a human.

Catch your next role the second it’s posted.

Create a free account and we’ll watch the boards for you — the instant a job matches your search, it lands in your inbox or Telegram. No digging, no refreshing.

Create free account

Free forever · takes 30 seconds · already have one?

Get an edge on your job hunt.

Join our Telegram channel for the stuff that helps you land the role — salary benchmarks, the weekly market pulse, and new-feature drops. No spam, just signal.

Join the channel — it's free