Cybersecurity Practitioner Interviews
Listing checked September 24, 2026 · pay as published by Mercor
Overview
Mercor is building a benchmark to test how AI agents handle real enterprise cyber defense work. Before the benchmark takes shape, the team wants to hear from people who do that work day to day. You would join two or three one-hour video calls over about four weeks, paid per hour, with no prep and nothing to build, label, or submit. The conversations center on your actual workflows: the tools you use, what lands in your queue, how your team judges a SOC triage or containment action, and where AI helps or hinders. Experience with an EDR and SIEM stack is a plus.
What You'll Do6
- 1Describe how your team handles alerts from the moment they arrive to final disposition.
- 2Walk Mercor through the tools you rely on, including EDR and SIEM platforms, and explain which decisions need human judgment.
- 3Explain how you measure success for triage, containment, threat hunting, detection rules, and patching.
- 4Review a draft task taxonomy and point out missing, mislabeled, or wrongly weighted items.
- 5Discuss where AI tools help your work, where they get in the way, and what would make an AI benchmark credible to you.
- 6Keep employer and customer details confidential by speaking about patterns rather than specific incidents.
Requirements7
- 1Current or recent hands-on practitioner in enterprise security.
- 2Depth in at least one area: SOC analyst or lead at tier 2 or higher, incident response or digital forensics, detection engineering or threat hunting, AppSec or product security in production code, or security engineering with red team experience.
- 3Located in the United States and able to join remote video calls.
- 4Experience with an EDR and SIEM stack such as CrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Defender and Sentinel, Splunk, SentinelOne, Elastic, or similar.
- 5Security leaders who remain close to the work.
- 6Comfortable discussing patterns of work without naming confidential employers or customers.
- 7Available for two or three one-hour sessions over roughly four weeks.
Who Should Apply
The right person has current or recent hands-on enterprise security work, with depth in at least one area such as SOC tier 2+ analysis, incident response, detection engineering, threat hunting, AppSec, or red team engagements. They can speak to real tools and queues, including an EDR or SIEM stack like CrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Sentinel, Splunk, SentinelOne, or Elastic. The role suits practitioners who want to shape how AI is measured on cyber defense work and who can join two or three one-hour calls over about four weeks. The engagement is a poor fit for people seeking a build, labeling, or long-term data project, or for those without current or recent hands-on enterprise security experience, and Tier 1 analysts or people outside the US may not match the screen. Candidates often score low when they describe security concepts in general terms without naming the tools, workflows, and success metrics they use, or when they cannot separate pattern-level discussion from confidential incident details.
Salary Insight
Mercor lists $125 to $175 per hour for interview time, paid as a spot bonus. That range fits senior security practitioners with specialized EDR or SIEM experience, and it sits above many general expert-network research calls. No prep or deliverable changes the math: the pay covers the one-hour conversations. Two or three sessions over four weeks means total earnings depend on how many calls you schedule.
Pay and demand for Cybersecurity roles
AggregatedTypical pay
$75/hour
This role
$125–$175/hr
Most Cybersecurity roles pay $60–$95 per hour. This role's pay sits above that range.
Based on 107 similar roles that publish pay · 18 publish only a top rate; those count at the rate they gave
Rates shown per hour. Yearly and monthly pay converted; one-time fees and non-USD pay are not included.
- Live similar roles
- 152
- Listed in last 30 days
- 92
- Remote
- 86%
Hiring most right now: micro1 (49) · AfterQuery (18) · Mercor (17)
Most requested skills · share of roles
- Python20%
- AWS18%
- technical writing17%
- docker16%
Figures from Cybersecurity roles live on NearSkill when this page loaded. A role can close before you apply, so check the listing itself.
Compare your resume against these rolesLocation
Compensation
$125–175/hr
Required Skills
Application Tip
When you apply, lead with your exact hands-on title and stack, such as tier 2 SOC analyst, incident responder, detection engineer, threat hunter, AppSec engineer, or red team security engineer. Name the EDR and SIEM tools you use each day, including CrowdStrike Falcon, Microsoft Sentinel, Splunk, SentinelOne, or Elastic. Add one or two numbers that show operational depth, such as alerts triaged per week, incidents led per quarter, or detection rules deployed. Keep employer and customer details out of your examples.
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