Radiation Safety Officer

What you'll do

Mercor's radiological safety red-team panel is recruiting radiation safety officers, and the bar is specific: people who have held the licence, not only worked under it. The RSO is the person of record for what comes in, where it sits, where it goes and how it is disposed of. The panel tests whether frontier AI models help licensees, authorised users and regulators with that work, while declining requests aimed at getting material out of the system. Refusing routine licensing or inventory questions counts as a model failure.

Each task:

1. Write a single-turn prompt from RSO 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 regulatory and technical reasoning

RSOs spend their days answering questions from users, auditors and inspectors, and they know which ones are routine. That makes them well placed to judge the calibration Mercor is testing, and used to justifying decisions in writing to a regulator, which is close to what the rationale work asks.

Who fits

People who have been accountable for a licensed programme. The ad's examples:

• Named RSO on a broad-scope licence
• RSO or deputy RSO at a university, hospital or research institute
• Industrial or irradiator RSO: sealed sources, radiography, gauging, sterilisation
• Licensing and compliance specialist dealing with NRC, Agreement State or national regulators
• Radiation protection manager accountable for ALARA, audits, training and incident reporting

Red-teaming experience is preferred. Mercor asks for a writing sample or link; a published paper, training material or a redacted procedure you are allowed to share would all work.

What it pays

$65–75 per task, Mercor's published figure and the same across the radiological panel. The ad does not state task length.

The listing publishes no payment schedule or visa eligibility.

Before you apply

Nothing classified, export-controlled, under NDA or under prepublication review may be used. Licence-specific security information is also protected in most jurisdictions, so draw on general practice. Declare any obligations; Mercor says it will scope the work around them.

Mercor warns of long periods engaging with misuse scenarios, briefs experts beforehand, and lets you pause or step away without penalty.

Worth knowing

Good:

• Recognises licence-holder accountability as expertise in itself
• University, hospital and industrial RSOs all qualify
• No country restriction published

Less good:

• Deputies and users without licence-of-record experience may not meet the bar
• Per-task pay with no stated task length
• Payment terms not on the listing

About this listing

Posted by Mercor as a remote contract, confirmed open on 24 September 2026 and flagged as a new opportunity. Also on the radiological panel: Health Physicist, Source Security Specialist, Emergency Response Specialist and Nuclear Medicine Physicist / Cyclotron RSO. See Mercor.