What the work involves

You sit inside a frontier lab's GenAI team as the finance authority on private capital work. Day to day, that means three overlapping activities: reviewing finance knowledge-work tasks and model outputs for thin reasoning, unsupported assumptions, and answers that read fluently but would not survive an IC memo review; writing instruction specs and golden solutions that define what a correct answer actually looks like; and designing evaluation sets hard enough to distinguish real capability from pattern-matching. Expect to spend meaningful time turning tacit judgment — why a comp set is wrong, why a returns bridge doesn't tie, why a diligence conclusion is premature — into explicit, teachable criteria that other reviewers can apply consistently.

The PE/VC framing matters. Useful task material tends to come from LBO and returns modeling, capital structure and covenant analysis, quality-of-earnings and diligence workstreams, portfolio company operating reviews, fund-level economics and waterfalls, cap table and preferred-stock mechanics, and investment committee memo construction. You will also calibrate against researchers and specialists in adjacent domains, which means defending your standards in writing and revising them when someone finds a hole.

What the platform screens for

  • Verifiable seniority: 5+ years dedicated finance experience at a recognized institution, with progression to VP, Principal, Director, Partner, Portfolio Manager, or equivalent — real ownership of analysis and decisions, not adjacency.
  • A named specialization: the screen probes depth in one discipline rather than breadth across many, and follow-up questions get concrete fast (specific mechanics, specific edge cases, specific numbers).
  • Evaluation judgment: the ability to explain why an answer is wrong at a level a non-expert reviewer could reuse, not just flag it.
  • AI fluency: hands-on professional use of LLMs and a demonstrated instinct for plausible-sounding errors.
  • Credentials: an advanced degree (MBA, MS, PhD in finance, economics, accounting, or a quantitative field) and/or CFA, CPA, FRM, or an actuarial designation are strongly preferred.

Logistics, stated plainly

This is not a remote or async gig. It is hybrid and Bay Area-based: you must live in the Bay Area and work on-site with the client team multiple days per week when required. Candidates not already local must relocate at their own cost — no relocation assistance is provided. The commitment is 40 hours per week for an initial six-month engagement, with client-issued equipment and accounts, working inside the client's own tooling. Employment, payroll, and benefits are administered by Cincinnatus LLC as employer of record; Mercor is the discovery platform, not the employer. The $110–150/hr band reflects rates observed for comparable senior finance placements and is not a guarantee.