AfterQueryCybersecurity
Security Engineer: Cryptanalysis / Reverse Engineering
$135/hr
About this role, in AfterQuery's words
We're building a research cohort of senior domain experts in security — spanning cryptanalysis and reverse engineering — to help evaluate how frontier AI models reason about hard, real-world expert-level problems. This is research-and-evaluation work, not production engineering: you'll be defining what "correct" and "excellent" look like on problems you already know deeply.
What you'll do
Responsibilities
- Design realistic technical scenarios and problem sets within your track
- Author expert-level reference solutions and grading rubrics
- Evaluate AI-generated outputs for correctness, depth, and domain judgment
Candidate background
Requirements
- Domain: Security
- Experience: 6–10 years
- Education: Bachelor's Degree (Master's preferred)
- Candidates who meet the requirements and provide the requested materials will be prioritized for review. As part of this process, we conduct thorough background checks. Please apply only if you meet these requirements — candidates who meet fewer than 70% of the stated qualifications may be flagged for misrepresenting their professional experience, which could affect eligibility for future project staffing.
Required qualifications
- Currently or recently active in the field — hands-on, not purely academic-adjacent
- Strong written communication — you'll be authoring technical explanations and structured feedback, not just doing the work itself
- Comfortable with independent, asynchronous, remote work
- Meets the experience and education bar described in Full Description
Preferred qualifications
Show all 3 itemsHide these 3 items in Preferred qualifications
- Prior research publication record, open-source contributions, or recognized work product in your track's domain
- Experience evaluating, reviewing, or grading others' technical work (peer review, code review, grading, editing)
- Track-specific bonus signal Security: reverse engineering, cryptanalysis, CTF experience
Quoted from selected sections of AfterQuery's posting. The full posting may state other conditions. Read the full posting
A closer look
More context, when you need it.
Full job descriptionThe original posting, in AfterQuery's words
Posted by AfterQuery, reproduced here so you can judge the role before clicking. Original posting ↗
We're building a research cohort of senior domain experts in security — spanning cryptanalysis and reverse engineering — to help evaluate how frontier AI models reason about hard, real-world expert-level problems. This is research-and-evaluation work, not production engineering: you'll be defining what "correct" and "excellent" look like on problems you already know deeply.
Requirements
• Domain: Security
• Experience: 6–10 years
• Education: Bachelor's Degree (Master's preferred)
Candidates who meet the requirements and provide the requested materials will be prioritized for review. As part of this process, we conduct thorough background checks. Please apply only if you meet these requirements — candidates who meet fewer than 70% of the stated qualifications may be flagged for misrepresenting their professional experience, which could affect eligibility for future project staffing.
Responsibilities - Design realistic technical scenarios and problem sets within your track - Author expert-level reference solutions and grading rubrics - Evaluate AI-generated outputs for correctness, depth, and domain judgment
Required qualifications - Currently or recently active in the field — hands-on, not purely academic-adjacent - Strong written communication — you'll be authoring technical explanations and structured feedback, not just doing the work itself - Comfortable with independent, asynchronous, remote work - Meets the experience and education bar described in Full Description
Preferred qualifications - Prior research publication record, open-source contributions, or recognized work product in your track's domain - Experience evaluating, reviewing, or grading others' technical work (peer review, code review, grading, editing) - Track-specific bonus signal Security: reverse engineering, cryptanalysis, CTF experience
Why apply - Work directly on frontier AI research problems in your area of deep expertise - Fully remote, flexible, asynchronous — fits around existing work - Competitive hourly compensation ($100–$170/hr, based on experience)
Working with AfterQueryPay, getting started and work, from AfterQuery's own pages
What the platform publishes in general. These are not extra terms confirmed for this particular role.
- Getting paid
- Approved work is paid every Friday for the prior week, by Stripe to a bank account, with no fees. Stripe holds the first payout for 7 days. docs.afterquery.com/articles/payments-taxes/payment-setup
- Before your first paid task
- One assessment per expert pool, unpaid and with no retake. Onboarding takes about 10 minutes: legal documents, phone, ID through Persona, and payments. docs.afterquery.com/articles/onboarding/assessments, docs.afterquery.com/articles/onboarding/complete-your-onb...
- How much work
- Projects are assigned by assessment fit as they come up, and higher-rated contributors get priority. docs.afterquery.com/articles/onboarding/assessments, docs.afterquery.com/articles/about/contract-work
- Contract
- Independent contractor. Most contractors register as individuals. docs.afterquery.com/articles/about/contract-work, docs.afterquery.com/articles/onboarding/complete-your-onb...
Read on the pages linked above on 23 Sep 2026. Platforms change these terms, so check the linked page before you rely on one.
How does the pay compare?Across Cybersecurity roles, not this role alone
From our own daily reads of every open listing on the platforms we follow, not from AfterQuery's posting. How we count.
Pay across the field: Cybersecurity
Across 54 roles in this field with a stated hourly rate in US dollars, on 10 platforms, the middle half pays $60 to $113 an hour at the top of the range, and the median is $90. This role's top rate, $135, is in the top quarter. Of the 26 distinct rates we count, 22 are lower and 4 are higher.
| Platform | Roles | Top of range, per hour |
|---|---|---|
| Alignerr | 32 | $55 to $120 · median $60 |
| Mercor | 4 | $90 to $250 |
| micro1 | 4 | $95 to $175 |
| DataAnnotation | 3 | $125 |
| AfterQuery (this platform) | 3 | $75 to $112.50 |
Sources and listing historyWhere this information comes from
This listing's history
- First seen here on 26 Aug 2026, and still on AfterQuery's list when we last read it on 12 Oct 2026.
- Listed pay changed on 29 Sep 2026: up to $170/hr before, $135/hr after.
A change can also be a correction to how we read AfterQuery's feed. The figure at the top of this page is always the latest read.
- Posted by AfterQuery
- First seen by AIPayList
- Last seen live
- Listing ID
- 1785873008661
Pay as the source states it: “$135/hr”.
Platforms sometimes change a rate after posting. Every listing here is re-read at least once a day and corrected when its source moves, so a difference you see on the platform is usually a change made since the last read. How freshness works.
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