ML Research Expert - Benchmark Authoring
Listing checked October 5, 2026 · pay as published by AfterQuery
Overview
AfterQuery seeks Master's and PhD-level ML researchers to design and validate benchmark tasks that measure what frontier models can do across machine learning. The work is remote, asynchronous, and flexible, with 5 to 40 hours a week available. Your domain expertise shapes the tasks, whether you focus on language models, reinforcement learning, robotics, ML systems, or another listed area. The role fits people who write ML code and publish results, not those with annotation or data-labelling backgrounds. Pay is $150 per hour.
What You'll Do5
- 1Design research-grade ML tasks and problem sets that match your specialty.
- 2Author expert reference solutions for each benchmark task.
- 3Create grading rubrics that let reviewers score model responses.
- 4Validate tasks to confirm they measure what frontier AI models can do.
- 5Align problem sets with one or more listed areas such as language models, reinforcement learning, robotics, or ML systems.
Requirements7
- 1At least one first-author research paper in machine learning or a closely related field.
- 2Master's or PhD in ML, computer science, statistics, mathematics, or another quantitative discipline. Current PhD candidates qualify.
- 3One or more years of hands-on ML research experience, with no upper limit.
- 4Experience writing ML code for training, evaluation, or systems work rather than annotation or data labelling.
- 5Preferred: multiple first-author papers that report measured gains over a baseline.
- 6Preferred: publications at NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CVPR, ACL, EMNLP, CoRL, or MLSys.
- 7Preferred: deep knowledge in one or more task areas instead of broad familiarity.
Who Should Apply
The ideal candidate holds a Master's or PhD in ML, CS, statistics, mathematics, or a related quantitative field and has at least one first-author paper in machine learning. They write ML code for training, evaluation, or systems work and can point to a headline result from their publication. Candidates without a first-author paper, or whose ML experience comes from data labelling or annotation alone, will not pass the initial screen. The application asks for a paper link and the headline result, so incomplete submissions often get deprioritised. Broad familiarity across many areas without depth in one listed task area also weakens fit.
Salary Insight
The listing states $150 per hour. For remote expert benchmark authoring, this rate aligns with Master's and PhD researchers who hold a first-author publication. Candidates without that publication record may find the bar for this pay level high.
Pay and demand for Market Research & Insights roles
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This role
$150/hr
Most Market Research & Insights roles pay $40–$100 per hour. This role's pay sits above that range.
Based on 1,045 similar roles that publish pay · 302 publish only a top rate; those count at the rate they gave
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Most requested skills · share of roles
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- data annotation9%
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Compensation
$150/hr
Required Skills
Application Tip
Lead with the paper link and the headline result in one line instead of burying them in a CV. Reviewers prioritise candidates who provide these materials, and thorough background checks follow.
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