Principal Infrastructure Engineer

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 DAngelo Larry Summers and Jack Dorsey.

Position: Software Engineer
Type: Freelance
Compensation: $75$80/hour
Location: Remote
Duration: 12 weeks
Commitment: 1540 hours/week

Role Responsibilities

• Evaluate and compare the performance of AI-powered CLI coding agents on real-world infrastructure debugging tasks.
• Solve TerminalBench tasks using AI CLI agents to diagnose and fix failing systems.
• Write bash scripts to address root causes and ensure they survive service restarts.
• Diagnose broken systems inside Docker containers involving databases TLS pipelines and more.
• Compare and rank agents approaches after each task to inform product decisions.
• Work independently and asynchronously with flexible hours.

Qualifications

Must-Have

• 3 years of experience in software engineering with hands-on debugging of systems and infrastructure.
• Strong bash/shell scripting proficiency.
• Experience with Docker and containerization.
• Skills in infrastructure and systems debugging with PostgreSQL MySQL Redis nginx TLS systemd and log analysis.
• Familiarity with version control workflows (Git PRs issue tracking).

Preferred

• Experience with AI coding tools like Copilot Cursor or Claude.

Start Date

• Immediate

Application Process (Takes 2030 mins to complete)

• Upload resume
• AI interview: A short 15-minute conversational session to understand your background experience and interest in the role
• Follow-up communication within a few days with next steps and onboarding details

Resources & Support

• For details about the interview process and platform information please check:
• For any help or support reach out to:

PS: Our team reviews applications daily. Please complete your AI interview and application steps to be considered for this opportunity.