About this opportunity
Job Description
Mercor is hiring native Malayalam speakers for a PDF annotation and transcription project focused on improving how AI systems understand complex Malayalam-language documents.
You’ll work with real, publicly available PDFs—including newspapers, textbooks, examinations, forms, flyers, manuals, menus, brochures, notices, and worksheets—to create detailed structural annotations and character-accurate transcriptions.
The project focuses particularly on challenging documents containing handwriting, multi-column layouts, tables, diagrams, and mixed scripts.
What You’ll Do
- Find publicly accessible Malayalam PDFs that meet assigned document requirements.
- Identify and annotate meaningful page regions such as titles, headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, figures, diagrams, captions, formulas, questions, and answer fields.
- Assign the correct component type and reading order to each region.
- Record relationships between document components, including figures and tables.
- Transcribe all text exactly as it appears in Malayalam script, including handwritten content.
- Flag text that cannot be reliably read.
- Capture page metadata such as document type, source, dimensions, tables, formulas, and handwriting.
- Review work completed by other Malayalam annotators as you gain project experience.
Requirements
- Native fluency in Malayalam.
- Full command of Malayalam script and orthography, including diacritics and conjunct forms.
- Experience with annotation, transcription, translation, localization, subtitling, proofreading, journalism, or regional-language data review.
- Exceptional attention to character-level accuracy.
- Ability to apply detailed annotation guidelines consistently.
- Comfortable working with complex layouts, including multi-column newspapers, examination papers, and handwritten forms.
- Must be based in one of the eligible countries listed above.
Preferred Experience
- AI data annotation, labeling, grading, or bilingual evaluation.
- Transcription, localization, subtitling, MTPE, or bilingual QA.
- OCR correction or post-editing.
- Malayalam-language typesetting, proofreading, copy-editing, or document digitization.
- Familiarity with Unicode normalization, Malayalam input methods, and character-form accuracy.
- Previous annotation or transcription review experience.
What Success Looks Like
Successful contributors will accurately identify every meaningful document region, maintain the correct reading order, and produce character-for-character Malayalam transcriptions rather than transliteration.
Accuracy is prioritized over speed, and completed tasks undergo review by a second Malayalam-language expert.
Contract & Payment
This is a fully remote independent contractor opportunity paying $12.68 per hour.
Work can be completed on a flexible schedule, with payments processed weekly through Stripe or Wise. Project duration may be extended or shortened depending on project requirements and performance.
