ML Inference Expert - Remote Async Contract Worldwide — Columbus
Traveler-Friendly Insight
Fully async, location-independent contract work — this is about as nomad-friendly as it gets. Tasks are discrete, self-contained units of ~60–75 minutes each, with no fixed hours, no timezone requirements mentioned, and no synchronous meetings implied. You submit when you're ready and receive written reviewer feedback asynchronously.
Visa considerations: Because this is task-based contract work (not employment), it typically falls under freelance/self-employment income. This means it pairs naturally with:
- Digital nomad visas (Portugal, Spain, Costa Rica, Georgia, Thailand LTR) — all require proof of remote income, which per-task earnings can satisfy if volume is sufficient.
- Tourist visas for shorter stays — common in Thailand, Indonesia (Bali), or Mexico where nomads work legally as self-employed contractors.
Income considerations: No rate is disclosed, so it's hard to benchmark against cost of living. However, if per-task rates are competitive for ML experts (~$100–$300/task as seen in similar AI data-labeling platforms), completing several tasks per week could cover living costs in Medellín (~$1,200/mo) or Chiang Mai (~$1,000/mo) easily, while Lisbon (~$2,500/mo) would require a higher task volume. Clarify the per-task rate before committing.
No equipment stipend or coworking budget is mentioned. You'll need your own GPU-capable setup or cloud credits for realistic task testing.
Overview
We are building a benchmark that tests how well AI agents handle real expert work in a terminal. We are hiring ML inference and serving experts to turn real, paid tasks from their jobs into expert-level Terminal-Bench challenges. Each task includes the environment, a working solution, and an automated check that proves the result is correct.
***THIS IS A TASK BASED COMPENSATION MODEL. PLEASE CHECK THE APPLICATION QUESTIONS FOR MORE DETAILS.***
Responsibilities
- Design expert-level Terminal-Bench tasks that turn real, paid ML inference work from your own experience into challenges an AI agent must solve end to end.
- Define the files, systems and environments each task runs on, such as model serving with streaming, so the challenge is realistic, reproducible and command-line solvable.
- Write a working reference solution for every task and verify it runs end to end, sized for about 60 to 75 minutes of expert effort.
- Build automated checks that objectively prove a result is correct, including cases where ML outputs go wrong silently, such as numerical drift or metric bugs.
- Package tasks with Docker and Git so they are reproducible, and document the systems, tools, data and rules involved so reviewers can validate difficulty.
- Iterate on tasks based on reviewer feedback and agent test runs, adjusting difficulty and fixing ambiguities so each task stays expert-level, fair and objectively gradable.
Skills / Experience Required
- 3+ years doing ML inference or serving work hands-on (not only studying, selling or managing it), or a PhD plus active research in the subfield.
- Did this work in the last 3 years and can name the systems, tools, data and rules used.
- Trained, served or evaluated models at real scale (multi-GPU or production serving), not only notebooks or API calls.
- Hands-on with PyTorch or JAX internals and serving stacks such as vLLM, SGLang or TensorRT-LLM.
- Can explain how ML results go wrong without errors (numerical drift, metric bugs) and how to catch them.
- Technical fluency in Python and the command line, and with files, CSV/JSON, APIs or databases.
- Availability to start by early November 2026 and complete tasks of about 60 to 75 minutes each.
Nice-to-Have
- AI lab or LLM infrastructure experience.
- Contributions to PyTorch, vLLM or SGLang.
- GPU profiling experience.
- Docker and Git proficiency.
- Experience writing automated tests.
Process
- Task vetting instead of an interview: complete a vetting task so the client can assess your task design.
- Paid per task; each task takes about 60 to 75 minutes.
- Work is delivered task by task, with reviewer feedback on submissions.
- Expected start in early November 2026.
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