Open Source Contributor

Remote · Flexible Hours · Mid-Senior Level

🌍 Remote Flexible Hours Mid-Senior Infrastructure & DevOps
About This Role
Mercor is seeking experienced developers with a proven record of open-source contributions to join a high-quality, global network of engineers supporting AI, data, and enterprise software infrastructure projects.

This opportunity is designed for developers who are deeply engaged in the open-source ecosystem and have a passion for backend architecture, scalable systems, and reliable software engineering.

Key Responsibilities

  • Design challenging coding problems with clear input/output specs, constraints, and explicit function signatures.
  • Develop complete mini-repos, including:
- Problem statement - Reference solution - Comprehensive unit tests (10–20 cases) - Executable test runner
  • Implement clean, production-quality code aligned strictly with test expectations.
  • Write high-coverage tests covering edge cases, invalid inputs, and performance constraints.
  • Ensure full executability with no missing dependencies, configuration issues, or signature mismatches.

Requirements

  • 3+ years of backend development experience in one or more of the following languages: Rust, C++, C, COBOL, Java, Ruby, PHP, Python, TypeScript, Go, C#, JavaScript
  • Familiarity with Docker and basic CI/CD workflows (e.g., GitHub Actions or similar tools)
  • Strong understanding of clean code, modular design, and performance optimisation
  • Comfortable working with Git-based collaboration (PRs, issues, reviews)

*

Role Details

  • Expected commitment: ~10–20 hours/week
  • High-impact contributions to globally visible projects

Interview Prep Guide

EXCLUSIVE

Many top hiring platforms use AI-powered screening as the first step. Here's how to stand out when applying for a Open Source Contributor role:

Reliability Engineering: Discuss your approach to building resilient systems — monitoring, alerting, incident response, and post-mortems. Real examples are powerful.

Automation Mindset: Show how you've eliminated manual processes through infrastructure as code, CI/CD pipelines, and automated testing.

Cost Optimization: Be ready to discuss how you balance performance, reliability, and cost. Cloud economics knowledge is increasingly valued.

Practice Behavioral Question

"Walk me through a project where you had to learn a new domain quickly. How did you ramp up, and what would you do differently?"