Most people who don't get in fail the screening, not the CV. Five minutes here first: How to pass the micro1 AI interview with Zara.
What the work is
Role Title: Materials Science Expert
Role Type: Contractor
Location: Remote
Opportunity Snapshot
Pay: $80- $185/hour
Commitment: Flexible — fits alongside your current role
You’ll need: Master’s or PhD in materials science or a closely related field, plus principal-level industry experience or a faculty appointment
Your tasks: Build challenging technical problems from your own domain and define what makes an answer correct
You'll be working on
The problems where the textbook answer isn’t enough, where the right approach depends on reading the constraints correctly, where a plausible-looking solution is quietly wrong. You’ll build those problems, provide the correct analysis, and define what separates a right answer from one that only looks right.
What you’ll do
- Design difficult technical problems from your own area — structure-property relationships, processing, characterization, failure analysis, computational materials — with realistic constraints and supporting data.
- Provide the correct solution and walk through the reasoning that gets there.
- Define objective criteria for correctness, so another expert reviewing the work would reach the same verdict.
- Review problems built by other contributors for technical accuracy and soundness of method.
- Flag problems that turn out to be ambiguous or ungradable rather than submitting them.
Who gets hired
- Master’s or PhD in materials science, metallurgy, ceramics, polymer science, condensed matter physics, or a closely related field.
- Principal, staff, or fellow-level experience in industrial or national lab research, or a faculty appointment at a leading university.
- Deep technical depth in at least one materials subdomain, with hands-on ownership of the work.
- Able to explain why an answer is correct clearly enough that another scientist could verify it.
- Publications, patents, or a record of technical leadership is a strong plus.
- AI or LLM evaluation experience is a plus, but not required.
How the selection process works
- Apply and complete the screening questions
- Complete the AI interview for this role — it’s how your expertise gets in front of the client
- Profile review
- Onboarding — our Talent Ops team will get you set up
The platform posted this on 31 Oct 2026.