Drug Discovery Scientist

No, applying and joining Mercor is free. Mercor's revenue comes from a fee it charges the client on top of your hourly rate, not from applicants. Treat any request for payment to join as a red flag.

Mercor places you with one client for a defined engagement, like 'Python Tutor for 3 months', rather than having you grab small tasks from a shared queue. Most roles function as steady contract work, not one-off gigs.

Practical, hands-on data work: recording short videos, categorizing images, rating text responses, or analyzing data. Tasks are designed to be short and distinct, typically 5 to 60 minutes each.

No set hours, no check-ins, no meetings. You log in when you want, pick up an available task, complete it, and submit; nobody is waiting on you in real time. That's different from remote employment, where you're expected online during business hours. The tradeoff: you're competing with others for available tasks, so an empty queue means there's simply nothing to do until more work is released.

Tasks here are scoped to Generalist, not generic labeling. As a Drug Discovery Scientist, expect to draw on real domain judgment (evaluating outputs, correcting errors, or providing expert reasoning specific to Generalist) rather than following a one-size-fits-all rubric. If you don't have hands-on Generalist background, this is likely not the right listing to start with.

Expert and AI Training are named directly in the listing. If you don't have hands-on experience with these, expect the screening process to test for them directly rather than accepting adjacent experience as a substitute.

This listing is posted at $60–$90/task, a per-task rate. The range reflects experience level and negotiated terms, not a placeholder, so where you land in it depends on your background and the assessment. Pay can change between when we last checked the listing and when you apply, so confirm the current number on the platform's own application page before committing time.

It doesn't directly, that's the catch. Each task has a listed price and an estimated completion time, but your actual effective rate depends on how fast you work. If a task is estimated at 20 minutes and pays $8, that is $24/hr for a fast worker and $12/hr for a slow one. Track your actual time on the first few tasks before treating the listed rate as your real hourly income.

You'll be taken to Mercor's external site to complete your application there. This listing links through a referral, but the process is identical to applying directly; the link just routes you correctly. Create an account on their site and follow their onboarding steps.

For this specific role, yes, or near-equivalent professional depth. The credential gate is enforced at the assessment stage, not just on paper. That said, active PhD candidates and people with equivalent published research have qualified without a formal degree. The assessment is the real filter.

Not immediately. Mercor is a talent marketplace, not a task queue, so applying puts you in a pool of candidates. You start working only once a specific client, like a major AI lab, selects your profile, and that matching process can take weeks.