Bilingual Portuguese STEM Expert (PhD): AI Safety

What you'll do

Portuguese has two major written standards, European and Brazilian, and AI models tend to see far more Brazilian text. This listing prefers candidates in Portugal or Western Europe, which suggests European Portuguese is the target, though the ad itself only says "Portuguese". If you write mainly Brazilian Portuguese, ask before investing time in the application.

The work:

• Writing expert-level prompts in Portuguese on specialised scientific topics
• Evaluating and annotating model responses for scientific accuracy, helpfulness and handling of sensitive content
• Classifying prompts and conversations with structured guidelines

The science covers chemical, biological, and radiological and nuclear areas. The skill at the centre is dual-use judgment: separating legitimate research and teaching questions from requests for genuinely dangerous capability, and checking whether the model responds appropriately to each in Portuguese. You are assessing the model's restraint, not producing harmful material.

Mercor trains you on the workflow; no AI background is needed.

Who qualifies

• A PhD in chemistry, biology or a closely related field, completed or in progress
• Depth to write across chemical, biological, or radiological and nuclear subject areas
• Native or near-native Portuguese and business-level written English
• Deep familiarity with modern laboratory and computational techniques in your subfield
• Sound judgment on scientific safety and dual-use information

The ad prefers specialists to generalists (synthesis, molecular biology, microbiology, virology, genetics and similar), welcomes radiological and nuclear coverage from chemistry (radiochemistry, nuclear chemistry, energetic materials, radiation physics), and values research or coursework on chemical security, biosafety or hazardous-materials handling, plus experience reviewing, grading or red-teaming technical content.

Portugal or the wider Western Europe region is preferred, not required.

What it pays

$50–54 per hour, Mercor's published figure. That sits between the Eastern European STEM versions (Croatian and Ukrainian at $48–52) and the Nordic and Belgian ones ($61–65 and up). We did not see a Portuguese generalist counterpart among the AI safety listings we reviewed on 24 September 2026, so there is no in-series benchmark for the PhD premium here.

Against Portuguese academic pay, $50–54 an hour for flexible remote work is a strong rate.

Payments are weekly via Stripe or Wise, based on services rendered.

Worth knowing

Good:

• Good rate relative to the local academic market
• Doctoral candidates qualify
• Active: 9 hires this month when we checked
• Remote on your own schedule, immediate start

Less good:

• The ad does not say which Portuguese standard it wants
• Hazardous-science topics throughout
• No stated weekly hours, project length or end client; projects can be extended, shortened or ended early
• Independent contractor, no benefits
• H-1B and STEM OPT candidates excluded

About this listing

Posted by Mercor as a part-time remote position, confirmed open on 24 September 2026. Pay, requirements, location preference and payment terms are the ad's own; the note on Portuguese variants and the comparisons are ours. See Mercor.