Strategic Project Associate

ABOUT MERCOR Mercor's mission is to organize human intelligence to power the AI economy. We're a leading AI data company, building the layer between human expertise and frontier models. Millions of domain experts on the platform are paid over $4 million per day to train frontier AI models. Mercor's APEX benchmark family measures AI's real-world impact on professional work. Mercor Enterprise brings this same infrastructure to Fortune 500 companies: helping companies capture how their best people actually work, translating that expertise directly back into agents.   Mercor is creating a new category of work where expertise powers AI advancement. Achieving this requires an ambitious, fast-paced and deeply committed team. You’ll work alongside researchers, operators, and AI companies at the forefront of shaping the systems that are redefining society. Mercor is a profitable Series C company valued at $10 billion. We work in-person five days a week in our San Francisco, NYC, or London offices. ABOUT THE ROLE As a Strategic Project Associate, you will work closely with Strategic Project Leads to execute large-scale projects for leading AI labs and technology companies. You will help manage project portfolios representing millions of dollars in revenue, coordinate hundreds of highly skilled domain experts, identify and resolve operational and data-quality issues, and ensure that projects consistently meet a high standard. This is not a traditional entry-level project coordination role. You will have the opportunity to take ownership, make sound decisions with incomplete information, move quickly, and contribute directly to the success of high-impact customer programs. The role offers significant responsibility early in your career, exposure to the frontier of AI, and rapid growth opportunities within a fast-paced U.S. startup. WHAT YOU’LL DO - Execute complex, large-scale projects on behalf of leading AI labs and technology companies. - Help manage multimillion-dollar project portfolios, ensuring strong delivery, quality, and customer outcomes. - Source, evaluate, onboard, and manage the performance of hundreds of domain experts across areas such as software engineering, medicine, law, science, business, and others. - Monitor project performance and investigate operational or data-quality issues before they affect delivery. - Develop a strong understanding of why the data matters, what quality means for each project, and how project decisions can influence AI model performance. - Anticipate blockers, prioritize competing needs, and take initiative without waiting for detailed instructions. - Build strong working relationships with customers and communicate progress, risks, and recommendations clearly. - Collaborate closely with Strategic Project Leads, Operations, Engineering, and Machine Learning teams to meet customer objectives. - Design and improve processes that enable projects to operate more accurately, efficiently, and at greater scale. - Identify opportunities to expand successful projects and create additional value for customers. WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR - 0 - 3 years of professional experience. New graduates looking for their first full-time professional opportunity are encouraged to apply. - Strong analytical thinking and an ability to identify patterns, inconsistencies, and root causes. - Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to approach unfamiliar challenges with structure, creativity, and sound judgment. - Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English. You will work with international colleagues, customers, and experts. - Intellectual curiosity and a genuine interest in understanding how systems, data, and AI models work. - A high level of ownership, urgency, and attention to detail. - The ability to prioritize effectively and manage several workstreams at the same time. - Comfort operating in ambiguous situations, making decisions, and adjusting quickly as circumstances change. - Enthusiasm for using AI tools, combined with the critical thinking necessary to evaluate their output. - Openness to feedback, and a willingness to address problems directly and transparently. - Evidence that you have taken initiative, built something, led others, or assumed meaningful responsibility - whether professionally, academically, or through an entrepreneurial or extracurricular project. Experience in startups, consulting, strategy and operations, product, engineering, data, technology, entrepreneurship, or customer-facing roles can be valuable, but no single professional background is required. WHY JOIN MERCOR? Mercor offers the opportunity to begin or accelerate your career inside a profitable, high-growth U.S. technology startup at the forefront of AI. This environment is best suited to people who are ambitious, highly motivated, and energized by responsibility. We set a high bar for output and expect team m