Electrical Engineering & Simulation Expert — Hephaestus

Role Overview

Mercor is seeking experienced electrical engineers to build and validate technical tasks for AI systems working with circuits, power electronics, control systems, and electrical infrastructure. The work centers on executable engineering models, simulation, debugging, and measurable verification.

Contributors create the native engineering files and reference solutions behind each task, run the relevant analyses, and define checks that distinguish a working design from a plausible but incorrect result. Tasks may follow a US standards track (NEC / NFPA 70, NESC, IEEE) or an international track (IEC), as appropriate to the engineering problem.

Key Responsibilities

• Build realistic tasks in one or more specialties: circuit and PCB design, power electronics, power systems, embedded systems, or industrial controls.
• Create and debug schematics, SPICE netlists, component models, control logic, and other native technical artifacts needed to reproduce a task.
• Configure operating points, initial conditions, parameter sweeps, transient or steady-state analyses, and fault cases. Assess convergence, model assumptions, and the physical validity of results.
• Develop reference solutions and verification code that checks outputs such as voltage, current, efficiency, losses, timing, stability, protection behavior, and design constraints, with explicit units and tolerances.
• Package model files, dependencies, scripts, and results so another engineer can reproduce the work. Validate checks against both correct and deliberately incorrect cases.
• Review AI-generated engineering artifacts and diagnose failures in the design, simulation setup, or verifier. Use coding agents where helpful while independently checking their output.

Ideal Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional electrical engineering experience, with direct ownership of circuit designs, power systems, controls, or product validation.
• Recent hands-on experience with relevant tools such as KiCad, Altium, Cadence, SPICE/ngspice, MATLAB/Simulink, or equivalent engineering software. Expertise in every listed tool is not required.
• Ability to write, inspect, and debug Python or comparable scripts for simulation automation, data analysis, and numerical checks.
• Sound judgment about component behavior, numerical accuracy, safety margins, and applicable standards; ability to distinguish simulation predictions from measured laboratory evidence.
• Clear technical writing and a disciplined approach to documenting assumptions, reproducibility, and failure modes.
• A professional engineering credential and experience with test automation, engineering training, or evaluation design are a plus.

Compensation

• Writers: $70–$80/hour.
• Reviewers: $90/hour.