Economist, Marketplace
Mercor•3h ago
United StatesOnsite$130K–$500KFull-timeMid Level2+ yrs exp
H-1B sponsor
- About Mercor Mercor's mission is to organize human intelligence to power the AI economy. We partner with leading AI labs and enterprises to provide the human intelligence essential to AI development. Our vast talent network trains frontier AI models in the same way teachers teach students: by sharing knowledge, experience
- context that can't be captured in code alone. Today, more than 30,000 experts in our network collectively earn over $3 million a day. Mercor is creating a new category of work where expertise powers AI advancement. Achieving this requires an ambitious, fast-paced and deeply committed team. You’ll work alongside researchers, operators
- AI companies at the forefront of shaping the systems that are redefining society. Mercor is a profitable Series C company valued at $10 billion. We work in-person five days a week in our San Francisco, NYC
- London offices. About the Role As an Economist on the Marketplace team, you will bring economic theory and rigorous empirical methods to the core decision systems that govern how talent and opportunities meet on Mercor. You'll study and shape marketplace dynamics — matching efficiency, pricing, incentives, liquidity
- supply/demand balance — and turn those insights into mechanisms and metrics that directly affect fill rate, hiring speed, earnings
- revenue. This is a high-impact, applied role at the intersection of economics, data science
- engineering. You'll help design the incentive structures and allocation mechanisms of a rapidly scaling two-sided labor market
- partner closely with ML, product
- engineering to put them into production. What You'll Own Marketplace mechanism design: pricing, incentives
- allocation rules that balance supply and demand Causal measurement of marketplace health — liquidity, match quality, fill rate, time-to-hire
- earnings Experimentation: A/B and marketplace/switchback experiments to evaluate interventions under interference Forecasting and modeling of supply, demand
- capacity across the talent network Economic framing of ranking, matching
- routing objectives, in partnership with ML and engineering Example Problems Design pricing and incentive mechanisms that improve liquidity without sacrificing quality or margin Quantify and mitigate marketplace failure modes: cold start, congestion, thinness
- supply/demand imbalance Measure the causal impact of matching and routing changes when market participants interfere with one another Build supply/demand forecasts that drive capacity planning and sourcing decisions Define the objective functions and guardrail metrics the marketplace optimizes toward What We're Looking For Advanced degree (PhD or Master's) in Economics or a related quantitative field
- equivalent applied experience Strong foundation in microeconomics / market design and in causal inference and experimentation Proficiency with data and code (SQL plus Python or R) to run analyses end-to-end on real data Ability to translate economic theory into mechanisms and metrics that ship in a live product Clear communication of rigorous analysis to both technical and business audiences Nice to Have
- Experience with marketplaces, pricing, ranking/matching, or two-sided platforms (labor, ads, ridesharing, etc.)
- Familiarity with experimentation under interference (network or marketplace experiments)
- Experience partnering with ML and engineering teams to productionize models or mechanisms Why This Role Mercor is a two-sided marketplace at its core. This role owns the economic logic of that marketplace — the incentives, prices
- allocation rules that determine who gets matched, how fast
- at what value. Your work will shape fundamental marketplace outcomes across quality, speed, earnings
- revenue. Benefits Bi-annual performance bonus structure Generous equity grant vested over 4 years Up to $15k Relocation bonus $10K housing bonus (if you live within 0.5 miles of our office) $1.5K monthly stipend for meals Free Equinox membership $200 monthly laundry reimbursement $200 monthly personal wellness reimbursement Health, Dental, Vision insurance
Required skills
Economicsdata scienceSQLPythonR