Senior Design Expert - Paid AI Design Research Study

What you'll do

A major technology company building AI design tooling wants to understand how senior designers think, and it is paying for structured, recorded conversations to find out. The themes are the ones any design lead argues about: how you approach a problem, what separates strong craft from weak, and how you decide something is ready to ship.

Depending on fit, you take one of two roles:

• The expert: you are interviewed and walk through your reasoning
• The interviewer: you run the session and draw that reasoning out of another senior designer

Each task or interview runs about 4–5 hours including prep beforehand and a short review afterwards. The ad does not say how many sessions are available per person.

This is research participation rather than rating or labelling. Your output is recorded expert reasoning, which the client presumably uses to inform how its AI tools judge design quality.

Who fits

• Senior-level experience in product, UX, brand or an adjacent craft discipline
• A clear, articulable point of view on design quality, critique and shipping standards
• A shareable portfolio, ideally a website

If you have run design critiques or reviews for a team, you are already practising the skill being studied.

Your portfolio and confidentiality

The ad states that portfolios are used only to assess fit for the study and will not be used for model training of any kind. It asks you to submit only work you are free to share publicly: nothing confidential, unreleased or covered by an NDA. Take that literally and check client agreements before including anything.

What it pays

The listing band is $150–250 per hour, and the ad's own text quotes $250 per hour. It also warns that structure, timing, volume and rate may change because scope is still being finalised with the client. Treat the rate as provisional until you see an offer.

Payment is weekly via Stripe or Wise. H-1B and STEM OPT candidates cannot be supported.

Worth knowing

Good:

• Very high hourly rate for a conversation about your own practice
• A clear statement that your portfolio will not train models
• No country restriction is published
• Sessions are bounded, around 4–5 hours each

Less good:

• Scope, volume and rate are explicitly unsettled
• Sessions are recorded, so be comfortable with that
• Likely occasional work rather than steady income
• Independent contractor; projects can be extended, shortened or ended early

About this listing

Posted by Mercor as a remote hourly contract, confirmed open on 24 September 2026. Session length, pay and the portfolio statement are the ad's own. See Mercor.