Open Source Maintainer / Core Contributor – Software Engineer
Listing checked November 3, 2026 · pay as published by Mercor
Key details
- Pay
- $150/hr
- Location
- Remote · United StatesUnited States
- Job type
- full-time
- Openings
- 100
- Posted
- November 3, 2026
Overview
An AI lab's GenAI group wants engineers who already carry ownership of a mature open-source codebase to raise the quality of the code their models learn from. Day to day you design realistic engineering tasks on the repository you know best, write reference solutions, and judge whether AI-generated patches clear the same bar. Work runs 40 hours per week on weekdays, and building and testing the project locally with Docker is a routine part of the job. Cincinnatus LLC employs you on a W-2 basis and places you inside the lab's extended workforce. Clear written code review feedback is the main output, not shipped features.
What You'll Do8
- Coach research and engineering teams on software engineering, code review, and open-source maintenance gaps that hold model performance back.
- Author demanding, lifelike tasks drawn from your own repository: the refactors, features, and bug fixes a maintainer would hand to a contributor.
- Produce correct, well-organized reference solutions for every task you write.
- Review AI-written code, tests, and grading rubrics against the repository's architecture, conventions, and quality bar.
- Deliver specific written technical feedback on where AI-generated changes miss the mark.
- Build, run, and test the project locally, Docker included, to confirm tasks, solutions, and tests behave as expected.
- Write rationales that spell out what a strong solution looks like and why a weaker one fails.
- Sync with other subject matter experts so training data stays consistent and accurate.
Requirements10
- Recognized as a maintainer in MAINTAINERS or CODEOWNERS, or credited with 10+ PR reviews in the past 12 months, on a widely used open-source project.
- Alternatively, a core contributor with at least 3 substantive merged PRs in the last 12 months.
- The repository must be 2+ years old, carry real users, show an active review culture, and be mostly human-written.
- A sustained contribution record that a public GitHub account can verify.
- Senior-level review judgment, including the ability to pick apart AI-written code, tests, and edge cases.
- Hands-on skill at building and running the project and its test suite locally, Docker included.
- Availability for 40 hours per week on weekdays on an exclusive basis: no other full-time job and no other AI training or evaluation work, Mercor projects included.
- Authorization to work in the United States on a W-2 basis.
- Readiness to clear background checks and confidentiality agreements, and to work on a company-provided device.
- Strong written communication, with all rationales and feedback composed in your own words.
Who Should Apply
Engineers who hold maintainer or core contributor status on a well-used open-source project and want their review judgment to shape how AI models write code. You should be comfortable running builds and test suites locally in Docker, and able to explain technical decisions in writing.
Salary Insight
This engagement pays $150 per hour for a 40-hour weekday week, which works out to roughly $312,000 a year before benefits. That rate sits at the high end for contract software engineering work and reflects the narrow ask: verifiable maintainer status on a widely used repository plus senior review judgment.
Pay and demand for Software Engineering roles
Market estimates from live NearSkill listings — separate from this job's published terms.
This role · as published
$150/hr
Taken from the listing itself.
Typical pay · estimated
$70/hour
Median of 1,349 similar roles that publish pay · 301 publish only a top rate; those count at the rate they gave
Most Software Engineering roles pay $40–$95 per hour. This role's pay sits above that range.
Rates shown per hour. Yearly and monthly pay converted; one-time fees and non-USD pay are not included.
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Most requested skills · share of roles
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