Nonproliferation Analyst

What you'll do

Mercor's nuclear materials and safeguards red-team panel includes a policy seat, and this is it. Unlike the engineering and forensics roles, the expertise here is about rules, flows and networks: what is controlled, how transfers are screened, how programmes are assessed. The panel tests whether frontier AI models answer compliance questions properly and refuse help with circumvention. A model that refuses a routine classification question fails just as surely as one that helps evade a control.

Each task:

1. Write a single-turn prompt from your nonproliferation practice, labelled benign, dual-use or adversarial
2. Evaluate the model's response against a defined policy standard
3. Write the reference answer, with the reasoning behind it

The distinction the ad keeps returning to is compliance versus circumvention. An exporter asking how to classify an item and a buyer asking how to avoid a declaration can sound alike. Analysts who have done licensing, enforcement or pathway assessment already read requests that way.

Who fits

People who have worked proliferation questions professionally. The ad's examples:

• Export control licensing, classification or enforcement, including end-user screening
• Treaty and agreement implementation (NPT, CTBT, safeguards agreements, bilateral cooperation)
• Proliferation pathway and programme analysis at a laboratory, agency, ministry or research institute
• Sanctions, procurement network or illicit trade analysis
• Open-source and technical analysis of nuclear programmes

Red-teaming experience is preferred. This is likely the most naturally writing-heavy seat on the nuclear panel: policy analysts who publish or brief will find the rationale work familiar. Include a sample or link.

What it pays

$65–75 per task, Mercor's published figure and the same across the whole nuclear panel. The ad gives no task length. Think-tank and open-source analysts, whose rates vary widely, should measure a few tasks before comparing.

The listing does not publish a payment schedule or visa eligibility.

Before you apply

Your work must not draw on classified or export-controlled information, or on anything under NDA or prepublication review. Former government analysts often carry prepublication obligations; declare them and Mercor says it will scope the work accordingly.

Expect sustained engagement with misuse scenarios. Mercor briefs experts beforehand and lets you pause or step away without penalty.

Worth knowing

Good:

• Open to policy, sanctions and open-source analysts, not only engineers
• Existing publication or briefing experience counts directly
• No country restriction published

Less good:

• Per-task pay, no stated task length
• Payment terms absent from the listing
• Prepublication rules may apply to anything you write

About this listing

Posted by Mercor as a remote contract, confirmed open on 24 September 2026 and marked as a new opportunity. See Mercor.