Your Task You'll review 5 anonymized candidate profiles below. These represent real candidates we've considered for various technical roles at Mercor (Software Engineering, Machine Learning Engineering, Infrastructure). Complete the following: Part 1: Profile Ranking 1. Rank the 5 profiles from strongest fit (1) to weakest fit (5) for Mercor ii. Concerns: Coding was slower than IC candidates which means they are not hands not coding and more on the leadership side of things at Uber (which is also more structured) 1. How much time are they really hands down coding? (not including code reviews, etc). I think TC would be a good manager but given the needs of a fast paced start up they may have a difficult time adapting to change and the pace (including the need for managers to do some IC level work as well) For each profile, write 2-3 sentences explaining your ranking: (See above for answers) ○ What makes them strong or weak for Mercor? ○ What signals are you prioritizing and why? ○ What concerns or questions do you have? Part 2: Sourcing Strategy 3. 4. Based on the profiles you ranked #1 and #2, identify the archetype of candidate we should be targeting ○ Top Tier ML/Post-training engineers coming from Stripe, Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, Deepmind, & Meta. ○ Top Engineering schools such as Stanford, MIT, UC Berkeley, Cal Tech, etc ○ Strong Interview Performance: Clean and Strong Coding, Strong Sys Des, & most importantly solid communication ○ Career Alignment: Coming from early stage startups and want to join mid to late stage or those who want more visibility, ownership, & impact Propose 3 creative sourcing strategies to find more candidates like your top-ranked profiles. For each strategy, include: ○ Specific channels, communities, or tactics you'd use ○ Why this strategy would work for Mercor specifically ○ Expected volume and quality trade-offs
