---
title: 'Strategic Project Lead at Mercor'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/strategic-project-lead-mercor-san-francisco-2e0qe27jpjce'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-12'
---

# Strategic Project Lead at Mercor

- **Company:** Mercor
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Compensation:** $120k–$200k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-07-13
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-12
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/mercor/426a1c6b-e285-4b88-9f94-9048b1d6dc8c/application

**Skills:** Data Operations, Process Optimization, Project Management, Workflow Automation, Slack

> The Strategic Project Lead drives the tactical execution of multi-million-dollar data operations projects, managing large-scale teams and client relationships. This hands-on role focuses on optimizing process efficiency, ensuring flawless operational execution, and scaling high-quality data pipelines for leading AI...

## Job description

## 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

Silicon Valley’s leading AI companies partner with Mercor to scale high-quality data operations. As an SPL, you will:

- Drive the tactical execution of multi-million-dollar projects.
- Build deep client relationships with researchers at top AI labs.
- Orchestrate the work of 1,000+ contributors.
- Ensure flawless operational execution under demanding timelines.

This is a hands-on operations role for candidates excited by process optimization, rapid iteration, and high-intensity problem solving. We're an early-stage startup that operates with intensity. That means occasionally being responsive on weekends and always holding a high bar for output. The upside — performance incentives, career trajectory, and meaningful equity — reflects that.

Core Responsibilities

Operational Excellence

- Design and manage end-to-end data pipelines, from customer specifications to final delivery.
- Diagnose bottlenecks, restructure workflows, and implement solutions that improve quality, throughput, and cost-efficiency.
- Examples include: creating incentive systems, re-sequencing workflows, refining instructions, and scaling review processes.

Customer Relationships

- Act as the primary point of contact for leading AI labs.
- Deliver clear, consistent reporting and proactively anticipate client needs.
- Build long-term trust and identify opportunities for expansion.

Large-Scale Coordination

- Manage 1,000+ distributed contributors in Slack-based workspaces.
- Source, vet, train, and performance-manage domain experts.
- Maintain high execution standards across all stages of production.

Quality Reporting

- Run daily internal syncs (“war rooms”) to stay ahead of issues.
- Provide regular, transparent progress updates to customers.

## What We’re Looking For

- Experience: Background in consulting, finance, startups, or other operationally intense environments.
- Skills: Strong analytical and communication abilities; proven track record of managing complex projects.
- Customer-Facing Experience: Comfortable working directly with high-profile clients.
- Mindset: Excited by “gritty” process optimization and large-scale execution.

## Key Facts

- SPLs generate $10M+ in project revenue annually.
- Customer requests are high-pressure and time-sensitive (e.g., onboarding 1,000 contributors in 3 days, delivering 10+ hours of quality data per contributor within 48 hours).
- The role is explicitly operations-focused—not strategy, product, or GTM.

Growth Path

- SPLs begin as individual contributors, running projects end-to-end.
- High performers may advance to Senior SPL (SSPL) roles, managing multiple projects and teams of SPLs.

## Compensation

- Base cash comp from $120K-$200k
- Aggressive bi-annual performance bonus structure
- Generous equity grant vested over 4 years
- $10K proximity bonus (if you live within 0.5 miles of our office)
- $1.5K monthly stipend for meals
- Free Equinox membership
- $200 monthly laundry reimbursement
- $200 monthly personal wellness reimbursement
- Health, Dental, Vision insurance
- 401(k) with company match
- Up to $15k Relocation bonus

We consider all qualified applicants without regard to legally protected characteristics and provide reasonable accommodations upon request.

## About Mercor

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Mercor organizes human intelligence to power the AI economy by connecting domain experts with frontier AI labs and enterprises for model training, evaluation, and deployment.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series C)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, USA (with offices in New York City and London)
- **Founded**: 2023
- **Founders**: Brendan Foody & Adarsh Hiremath (Co-founders & Co-CEOs)

## Core Business
- Primary industry: AI Data & Infrastructure, Human-in-the-Loop AI, Enterprise AI
- Target customers: Frontier AI labs (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.), Fortune 500 enterprises deploying AI in production, and domain experts seeking high-value AI work
- Mission: Organizing human intelligence to power the AI economy — building the layer between human expertise and frontier models.

## Products & Services
- **Mercor Platform**: A global network of millions of domain experts across 300+ professional fields, paid over $3 million per day to train frontier AI models. Experts are found and vetted using dynamic, role-specific AI interviews.
- **APEX Benchmark**: A benchmark family that measures AI's real-world impact on professional work, setting a standard for whether AI can perform economically valuable work.
- **Mercor Enterprise**: Brings Mercor's expert network and evaluation infrastructure to Fortune 500 companies, deploying custom AI agents, staffing teams with vetted domain experts, and helping organizations encode their own knowledge into AI systems.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: $10 billion valuation (as of Series C)
- **Key Metric**: Total Funding — $350 million Series C (recently raised); company is profitable
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Not explicitly named in provided sources, but the company works with leading AI labs and Fortune 500 enterprises
- **Growth Signals**: 
  - Named to Bloomberg's "2026 24 AI Startups to Watch"
  - Forbes AI 50 (2025)
  - Forbes Cloud 100 (2025)
  - LinkedIn Top Startup (2025)
  - Described as "the fastest-growing company in the world"
  - Tens of thousands of skilled professionals earning an average of more than $95/hour on the platform

## Competitive Advantages
- **Massive, vetted expert network**: Millions of domain experts across 300+ fields, found and vetted via AI-driven interviews — a hard-to-replicate moat.
- **Direct frontier model exposure**: Every team works directly with frontier models, training them and building around them — most companies haven't imagined this level of integration.
- **Profitability at scale**: Profitable at Series C with a $10B valuation, indicating strong unit economics.
- **End-to-end AI infrastructure**: From expert sourcing and vetting to model evaluation (APEX) to enterprise deployment — a vertically integrated stack.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scaling the expert network**: Continuing to onboard millions of domain experts globally to meet the insatiable demand for high-quality human training data.
- **Enterprise AI deployment**: Expanding Mercor Enterprise to help Fortune 500 companies encode organizational knowledge into AI systems and deploy custom agents.
- **Benchmarking AI's economic impact**: Growing the APEX benchmark as the standard for measuring whether AI can perform economically valuable work.
- **Preparing for AGI**: The company's founding thesis is about answering what role humans will play in the economy as AGI approaches.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: "Built for people who thrive in high-velocity environments." Values include Intensity, Simplicity, User Obsession, High Standards, Can-Do Attitude, and Time Travelers (thinking ahead).
- **Work model**: In-person collaboration from offices in San Francisco, New York City, and London. No remote option — the company believes in-person collaboration helps move faster and solve harder problems.
- **Engineering culture**: Direct exposure to frontier AI research, labs, and startups. Every team works with frontier models daily. Described as "the fastest-growing company in the world."
- **Compensation**: Generous equity grants, competitive salaries (ranges from $100K–$500K depending on role), and a "proximity bonus" (generous annual housing support).
- **Benefits**: 
  - Unlimited paid vacation and sick days
  - Free Equinox membership (premium fitness access)
  - Monthly wellness stipend and free mental health services
  - Monthly food stipend
  - 401k with employer match
  - Parental leave for both birthing and non-birthing parents
- **Team**: "A team of ambitious, diverse people who want to work on what matters most." Open roles across Engineering (31 roles), Operations (15 roles), Enterprise (5 roles), Finance (4 roles), and more.

## Sources
1. [mercor.com](https://www.mercor.com/)
2. [mercor.com/careers](https://www.mercor.com/careers/)
3. [mercor.com/mission](https://www.mercor.com/mission/)
4. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/mercor](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/mercor)
5. [linkedin.com/company/mercor-ai](https://www.linkedin.com/company/mercor-ai)

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