What the work actually involves

Each task starts with you sourcing a publicly accessible Malayalam PDF page in an assigned document type — a newspaper spread, a textbook page, an exam paper, a flyer, form, manual, menu or notice — that contains at least one multimodal element: an image, table, diagram or handwriting. You record where you found it. Then you map the page: draw a bounding region around every meaningful component (title, section heading, paragraph, list, table, figure, caption, formula, question, answer field), assign each a component type, and give each a reading-order index that reflects how a Malayalam reader would actually move through the page, including across columns. Regions that belong to a figure or table get linked to it through a parent component identifier.

The transcription half is where the exactness bites. Every text region is reproduced in Malayalam script — never transliteration — matching the source character for character, including handwritten content, and including diacritics, conjunct forms (koottaksharam), chillu letters and numeral forms as they appear. Where the source genuinely isn't legible, you flag the region rather than guessing. You also capture page metadata: language, document type, source, page dimensions, and flags for tables, formulas and handwriting. Experienced annotators additionally review a colleague's full task before it ships.

What the platform screens for

Mercor's screen is looking for verifiable document-handling history — annotation, transcription, localization, subtitling, proofreading, journalism, OCR post-editing, typesetting, or regional-language data review — and for native-level command of Malayalam orthography that holds up under follow-up questioning. Expect to be pushed on specifics: how you'd handle a chillu versus its conjunct form, what you do with a two-column newspaper page where a photo caption sits between columns, whether you'd transcribe a printed Malayalam numeral in its Malayalam or Arabic form. Consistency of taxonomy application across hundreds of pages is treated as a real skill, not a soft trait. Nice-to-haves that carry weight: Unicode normalization knowledge, familiarity with Malayalam input methods, and prior bilingual QA or MTPE work.

Logistics

  • Remote, contract, task-based. Open only to contributors based in India, the United States, Canada, or Western Europe.
  • Observed pay band for this listing: $13/hr. Rates on Mercor vary by project and are not guaranteed.
  • Largely asynchronous with flexible hours; accuracy is the first-order metric, with handling time tracked alongside it, so sustained blocks of focused work suit the task better than fragmented minutes.
  • You will need a computer capable of viewing PDFs at high zoom, a working Malayalam input method, and reliable access to publicly available Malayalam document sources.