Cybersecurity Research Expert – Offensive Security & Vulnerability Research
Quick facts
- Pay
- $200–250 / hour
- Type
- Part-time
- Location
- Remote
- Skills
- Python, Java, C++, Rust, Kubernetes, Linux
- Platform
- Mercor — 291 open jobs
- Typical pay at Mercor
- $42–180/hour · median $85 (135 jobs on our site)
- Apply
- Free to apply — never pay to get AI training work
Pay: $200 – $250/hour
Commitment: Part time, ~40 h/week
Field: Software Engineering
We're looking for highly accomplished Cybersecurity Research Experts to help evaluate cutting-edge AI systems in advanced security reasoning, vulnerability analysis, exploit development, and secure software engineering. This project is ideal for practitioners with a strong track record in offensive security research and publicly recognised technical contributions.
What You'll Do
- Evaluate AI-generated analyses of complex cybersecurity scenarios, exploits, and vulnerability reports.
- Review technical writeups for correctness, exploitability, and mitigation quality.
- Validate vulnerability root-cause analysis across software, operating systems, networking, cloud, and web applications.
- Provide structured feedback on security reasoning, exploit chains, and defensive recommendations.
- Contribute to benchmark development for advanced AI security capabilities.
Ideal Background
We are looking for candidates with multiple of the following credentials:
- Member of a top-ranked Capture The Flag (CTF) team with demonstrated competitive achievements.
- Discoverer or co-author of CVEs affecting widely used open-source or commercial software.
- Publicly recognised bug bounty researcher with findings accepted by major programs (e.g., Google, Microsoft, Apple, Meta, GitHub, Mozilla, Chromium, Kubernetes, Linux Foundation, etc.).
- Research experience at a well-respected security laboratory or academic research group (e.g., KAIST Security Lab, SSLab, university security research groups, or equivalent industry research organisations).
- Author of high-quality security research publications, conference papers, or widely cited technical writeups.
- Strong understanding of exploit development, reverse engineering, binary analysis, vulnerability research, operating systems, networks, web security, or cryptography.
Preferred Qualifications
- Professional experience in offensive security, application security, vulnerability research, product security, or security engineering.
- Experience with reverse engineering tools such as IDA Pro, Ghidra, Binary Ninja, or Radare2.
- Familiarity with fuzzing, symbolic execution, static analysis, or dynamic analysis frameworks.
- Experience with Linux internals, Windows internals, browser security, cloud security, embedded security, or mobile security.
- Strong programming skills in C/C++, Rust, Python, Go, or Java.
- Excellent written communication and ability to explain complex security concepts clearly.
Nice to Have
- Hall of Fame recognition from major bug bounty programs.
- Black Hat, DEF CON, USENIX Security, IEEE S&P, ACM CCS, NDSS, or similar conference presentations/publications.
- Maintainer or significant contributor to well-known open-source security tools.
- Offensive Security certifications (OSCP, OSEP, OSCE3), GIAC certifications, or equivalent credentials.
Why Join?
- Work on frontier AI models tackling real-world cybersecurity problems.
- Collaborate with leading researchers on advanced security evaluation tasks.
- Help shape the next generation of AI systems for cybersecurity.
About Mercor
Mercor is an AI-driven hiring marketplace that places professionals on contracts with leading AI labs. You apply once, complete a short AI interview, and are then matched to open projects.