Private Equity & Venture Capital - Finance Domain Expert
Listing checked August 29, 2026 · pay as published by Mercor
Overview
You'll join a leading AI lab as a senior finance domain expert, working hybrid in the Bay Area. Your day-to-day involves reviewing finance knowledge tasks and model outputs, writing instruction specs and golden solutions, and designing benchmarks that measure progress. The role sits inside the lab's tools, with client-issued accounts and equipment. This is a full-time W-2 position through Cincinnatus LLC, not a freelance engagement. You must commit to 40 hours a week for an initial 6 months.
What You'll Do6
- 1Vet finance knowledge work tasks and model outputs for missing behaviors, thin reasoning, flawed assumptions, and answers that would fail professional scrutiny.
- 2Write instruction specs that define what correct finance work looks like, so models can learn from explicit criteria.
- 3Produce golden solutions to financial problems and design new finance tasks that mirror how the work is actually done.
- 4Create challenging finance tasks and evaluation sets to test model progress.
- 5Work with client researchers and specialists in adjacent fields to keep standards consistent and turn tacit financial judgment into teachable criteria.
- 6Calibrate model outputs against senior-level professional expectations and provide precise written feedback.
Requirements8
- 15+ years of dedicated finance experience at an investment bank, asset manager, private equity or credit fund, Big Four firm, large corporate finance function, or financial regulator. Generalist experience does not count.
- 2Deep specialization in at least one finance discipline, such as corporate finance and FP&A, investment banking and M&A, asset or wealth management, private equity or private credit, quantitative finance and risk, treasury, or accounting and audit.
- 3Clear progression to a senior individual contributor or leadership role like VP, Director, Principal, Managing Director, Portfolio Manager, Controller, or CFO, with real ownership of analysis and decisions.
- 4An advanced degree (MBA, MS, PhD in finance, economics, accounting, or a quantitative field) or a recognized credential such as CFA, CPA, FRM, or actuarial designation. Strong preference.
- 5Hands-on use of large language models in your professional work, plus the ability to distinguish a well-reasoned answer from a plausible-sounding wrong one.
- 6Excellent written communication and the ability to give structured, precise feedback.
- 7Availability to commit 40 hours per week for an initial 6-month engagement.
- 8Bay Area residency or willingness to relocate there at your own cost, with on-site presence multiple days per week.
Who Should Apply
The ideal candidate is a practicing senior finance professional with deep expertise in a specific domain like private equity, M&A, or risk, who already relies on LLMs in daily work. This role is less suitable for generalists who touch finance only peripherally or for people unwilling to be on-site in the Bay Area multiple days a week. We often see candidates rejected for listing titles that sound senior but lack real ownership, or for failing to show concrete examples of writing precise financial analysis. Another common miss is underweighting the AI fluency requirement: you need to demonstrate hands-on LLM use, not just familiarity.
Salary Insight
The pay is $110-$150 per hour, and because this is a W-2 role, that rate includes employer-paid payroll taxes and benefits. It matches the seniority bar here: the role requires 5+ years of experience, genuine domain depth, and hands-on AI fluency, so it sits at the high end of finance consulting rates.
Pay and demand for Finance & Accounting roles
AggregatedTypical pay
$100/hour
This role
$110–$150/hr
Most Finance & Accounting roles pay $80–$119 per hour. This role's pay sits above that range.
Based on 54 similar roles that publish pay · 8 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
- 65
- Listed in last 30 days
- 22
- Remote
- 88%
Hiring most right now: micro1 (17) · AfterQuery (15) · Mercor (11)
Most requested skills · share of roles
- accounting35%
- financial analysis29%
- financial modeling28%
- cpa26%
Figures from Finance & Accounting 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
$110–150/hr
Required Skills
Application Tip
Use your cover letter to show one concrete finance analysis you owned, then add a short note on how you used an LLM to verify or improve it. The reviewers filter for seniority and hands-on AI use, so explicit, specific evidence matters more than a long list of tools.
How NearSkill helps you apply
1. Check your job match
We compare your resume with the job requirements to help you understand how well your experience fits.
2. Continue to the employer’s website
We’ll direct you to the employer’s application portal, where you can complete the application.
3. Get updates by email
If NearSkill is handling follow-up for this role, we’ll email you when there’s an update on your screening.
Want to check your fit first?
See how your resume matches this role before applying.
Check my job matchSimilar open positions
Explore active roles that match your skills and interests.
Mercor
VerifiedFinance Domain Expert — AI Training & Evaluation
A leading AI lab's GenAI team needs a senior finance practitioner to judge and improve how frontier models handle real financial work. The role involves reviewing finance tasks and model outputs, writing instruction specs and golden solutions, and building benchmarks that measure model progress. This is a full-time W-2 position through Cincinnatus LLC, placed inside the client's own tools and workflows. The work is hybrid in the Bay Area, with on-site collaboration required several days each week.
Mercor
VerifiedInvestment Banking & M&A - Finance Domain Expert
An AI lab building frontier models needs a senior finance practitioner to judge what correct financial reasoning looks like. You will work inside the client's own tools alongside their research and program management teams, reviewing finance knowledge tasks and writing instruction specs that define quality. Your background in investment banking or M&A matters more than general business experience, since the models must handle real professional work. Employment is full-time W-2 through Cincinnatus LLC, based in the Bay Area with on-site presence required multiple days each week.
Mercor
VerifiedAccounting & Audit Domain Expert
An AI lab building frontier models is bringing in a senior accounting and audit specialist to act as the subject matter authority on work quality. You will review accounting and audit task outputs, write instruction specs and golden answers, and build evaluation benchmarks that measure real domain reasoning. You join the client's team as a W-2 employee of Cincinnatus LLC and receive client-issued equipment and accounts. Work is hybrid in the Bay Area, so you need to be on site several days a week and cannot treat this as a remote position.
AfterQuery
VerifiedFinance Expert - Early Career Remote Contract
AfterQuery, a YC-backed company, works with top AI labs to improve how models handle real-world financial judgment. As a remote contract Finance Expert, you will use Excel, PowerPoint and financial reasoning to recreate the analyses, models and memos found in investment banking, private equity and hedge fund work. Projects run on a flexible, self-paced schedule, with about 10 to 15 hours per week when active. The listing notes a 40-hour weekly commitment and pay at $50.00 per hour. You will build finance problem sets, write clear explanations and review AI-generated outputs for accuracy and realism.
Mercor
VerifiedAdvanced Finance Excel Expert - US Remote
Cincinnatus LLC hires for this W-2 role and places you with a technology company, where your finance Excel skills train large language models. You will create spreadsheet tasks from real work in private equity, investment banking, hedge funds, equity research, accounting, or FP&A, then write solutions and feedback that teach AI systems how to model. The work centers on three-statement models, DCF/LBO valuations, forecasting, advanced formulas, and dashboards. Expect a remote schedule of 40 hours per weekday through September, then 20 hours per week. The role runs through an hourly engagement and requires US residency.
AfterQuery
VerifiedInvestment Banking & Private Equity Expert
AfterQuery seeks finance professionals for a remote contract role that mirrors the work of an investment banking or private equity analyst. You will build financial models, run valuations such as DCF, LBO and APV, and apply accounting rules to cases involving NOLs, DTAs and operating leases. Projects run over 2 to 3 weeks and stay asynchronous, with 10 to 20 hours of work per week for each project you accept. The company is a Y Combinator-backed startup, and the listing highlights resume value from hands-on financial analysis.