Tech Lead Manager

About Mercor

Mercor is training models that predict how well someone will perform on a job better than a human can. We use our platform to source, vet, and onboard expert contractors who help train AI models in a wide variety of domains. Our technology is so effective it’s used by all of the top 5 AI labs.

We scaled from $1-500M in revenue run rate in the last 17 months, making us the fastest growing company in the world. Our growth is accelerating. We averaged 11% week over week growth in July, 18% WoW growth in August, and 19% WoW growth in September. The team is small and we remain profitable because we can’t hire great people as quickly as revenue is growing.

About the Role

As a Tech Lead Manager at Mercor, you’ll play a dual role: 50% of your time will be spent writing high-quality code and building systems, and the 50% half leading, mentoring, and scaling a high-performing engineering team. You’ll ensure that our core infrastructure and product development keep pace with our rapid growth while fostering a culture of technical excellence and collaboration.

This role is perfect for someone who thrives in high-growth environments, can bring order without adding bureaucracy, and knows how to balance technical depth with clear business alignment. You’ll directly shape the future of Mercor’s engineering organization as we scale.

What You'll Work On

• Writing production-level code and contributing directly to our systems and products (50% of your time).

• Managing and mentoring a team of engineers, driving career growth, and fostering a strong engineering culture

• Leading technical design, architecture decisions, and code reviews to ensure scalability and reliability.

• Prototype and scale new evaluation frameworks, benchmarks, and RL environments.

• Setting engineering guardrails that enable rapid growth without sacrificing stability or code quality.

• Hiring and onboarding top-tier technical talent quickly, including across geographies.

• Coordinating cross-functional projects with product, operations, and data teams to deliver high-impact outcomes.

• Translating technical strategy into business outcomes; aligning engineering decisions with marketplace P&L levers.

• Identifying and addressing bottlenecks in engineering processes as we scale rapidly.
  

What We're Looking For

• Strong background in backend engineering (Python/Django or similar) with proven ability to ship in production.

• Experience managing and scaling engineering teams while still contributing as an IC.

• Familiarity with LLM internals, most recent benchmarks, post training is a bonus.

• Direct experience coaching both individual contributors and engineering managers.

• Ability to hire top talent quickly and effectively in distributed team setups.

• Strong communication skills; able to explain technical trade-offs in plain business terms.

• Hyper-growth mindset; thrives in chaos and brings structure without heavy process.

• Above all: a builder-leader hybrid who thrives on both coding and coaching.
  

Why Mercor

• Impact: Your work powers how the world’s leading AI labs train and test their models.

• Learning: Get early insights into frontier model capabilities months before the market.

• Growth: Work on both infrastructure and research-adjacent projects with fast paths to ownership.