Source Security Specialist

What you'll do

This is the security seat on Mercor's radiological safety red-team panel. Where the RSO and health physics roles focus on running a licensed programme safely, this one wants people who have assessed how high-activity sources could be lost or taken, and designed the protection against it. The panel tests whether frontier AI models support licensees, inspectors and transport planners with real answers while refusing help to anyone trying to defeat those protections. Blanket refusals of routine compliance questions count as failures.

Each task:

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

The ad draws a sharp line between the security side of a licensed programme and "just its paperwork". Anyone who has run a vulnerability assessment knows that a question about protection measures can be a compliance manager's or an adversary's, and the difference is usually in the framing. Your job is spotting that and writing it up clearly.

Who fits

People with hands-on security experience for radioactive sources. The ad's examples:

• Security or vulnerability assessment of facilities holding Category 1 and 2 sources
• Physical protection design and review, including insider threat considerations
• Source recovery, consolidation or security-upgrade programmes for disused and orphan sources
• Regulatory security inspection under 10 CFR 37 or national equivalents
• Transport security for radioactive material

Red-teaming experience is preferred. International source-recovery programme staff and regulators are named alongside facility security staff, so this is not only a US role. Include a writing sample or link.

What it pays

$65–75 per task, the same published band as the rest of the radiological panel. Task length is not stated.

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

Before you apply

Classified, export-controlled, NDA-covered and prepublication-review information are all excluded, and site security plans are typically protected information in their own right. Declare any obligations; Mercor says it will scope the work accordingly.

Expect to engage with misuse scenarios for long stretches. Mercor briefs experts beforehand and lets you pause or step away without penalty.

Worth knowing

Good:

• Explicitly values security assessment over paperwork compliance
• Regulators, recovery-programme staff and transport specialists all fit
• No country restriction published

Less good:

• Protected security information cannot be used as source material
• 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 marked as a new opportunity. Also on the radiological panel: Emergency Response Specialist and Nuclear Medicine Physicist / Cyclotron RSO. See Mercor.