Expert: Mechanical Engineering (Contract, Remote)

Overview

Independent contractor role helping an AI research team understand how mechanical engineering work is done and building realistic, human-authored mechanical engineering evaluation tasks that frontier AI models get wrong.

What you'll do

• Build realistic evidence files from a provided scenario, such as drawings and CAD models, bills of materials, hand calculations and simulation reports, load calculations and equipment schedules, process sheets and tooling drawings, and test reports.
• Write task requests that state the deliverable and say how uncertainty and justified assumptions should be handled.
• Solve each task end to end and document a reference solution with the reasoning behind every step.
• Write scoring criteria precise enough that two independent graders reach the same verdict, including acceptable alternative answers and tolerances on numerical results.
• Check your own and your peers' tasks for technical accuracy and ambiguity.
• Work in reviewer feedback within agreed turnaround times, and flag guideline gaps or edge cases you run into.
• Explain to the research team how work in your area is actually done: the steps, the documents, who does what, and where things go wrong.
• Review the scenarios and documents the team builds from that research, and flag anything a practitioner would find unrealistic.

What you'll need

• 3+ years of hands-on experience in at least one of: mechanical design and structural analysis (mechanical design or stress engineer), thermal and fluid systems (thermal, fluids or HVAC engineer), or manufacturing processes and tooling (manufacturing or tooling engineer).
• You did the work yourself; supervising it is not enough.
• Working command of the standards, methods and codes in your area. Examples: ASME Y14.5 and GD&T, hand-calculation and finite element methods, ASHRAE and ASME codes, heat transfer and fluid sizing methods, or design for manufacturing and process capability.
• Strong calculation and spreadsheet skills and the habit of checking every unit, assumption and load case.
• Clear, precise writing in professional English.
• Ability to work independently and asynchronously against deadlines.

Nice to have

• Prior experience writing or reviewing AI evaluation tasks, exam questions, case studies or training material.
• Familiarity with how AI models fail.

Details

• Independent contractor engagement, fully remote and asynchronous.
• Pay of $50 to $150 per hour; some projects pay per accepted task with a bonus.
• Commitment of 10 or more hours per week; start is rolling.
• The trial task is paid.
• Hiring process: short AI interview and resume review, one paid trial task scored against a fixed quality checklist, then onboarding and first project.