Malayalam PDF Annotator and Transcriptionist

Role Overview

Help create high-quality training data that improves document AI for Malayalam and other underrepresented scripts. You will turn real, publicly available PDF pages into complete structural maps and accurate Malayalam-script transcriptions, with a focus on challenging material such as handwriting, dense multi-column layouts, tables, diagrams, and mixed-script pages.

Documents include newspapers, textbooks, examinations, flyers, forms, manuals, menus, brochures, notices, and worksheets. All annotation and transcription work is performed in Malayalam and is completed by human experts.

Key Responsibilities

• Review assigned PDF pages, which are provided for you, and confirm that each page is in Malayalam, legible, contains meaningful content, and does not include personal details.
• Identify, bound, and classify every meaningful page region, including titles, headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, figures, diagrams, captions, formulas, questions, and answer fields.
• Assign component types and reading-order indexes that reflect how the page is actually read, including across columns.
• Link regions to their related figures or tables using parent component identifiers.
• Transcribe text exactly as shown in Malayalam script, including handwritten text, and flag regions that cannot be read clearly.
• Capture page metadata, including language, document type, source, page dimensions, and indicators for tables, formulas, and handwriting.
• Review a colleague''s work end to end as an experienced annotator. Every completed task receives a second review by a Malayalam expert.

Qualifications

• Native Malayalam fluency is required, including full command of Malayalam script, orthography, diacritics, and conjunct forms.
• Experience with documents through annotation, transcription, translation, localization, subtitling, proofreading, journalism, or regional-language data review.
• Exceptional character-level accuracy, with careful attention to diacritics and other script details.
• A systematic approach to applying a consistent taxonomy across many pages.
• Comfort working with unfamiliar layouts, including multi-column newspapers, examination papers, and handwritten forms.

Preferred Experience

• Regional-language AI data work, including annotation, labeling, grading, or bilingual evaluation for training datasets.
• Transcription or localization work, including MTPE, subtitling, bilingual quality assurance, OCR correction, or post-editing.
• Typesetting, copy-editing, proofreading, or digitization of Malayalam-language documents.
• Knowledge of Unicode normalization, Malayalam input methods, and accurate numeral and character forms.

What Success Looks Like

• All meaningful page regions are captured, correctly bounded, and accurately classified.
• Reading order matches the document''s true flow.
• Transcriptions match the source character for character in Malayalam script, without transliteration.
• Tasks pass second-expert review on the first submission.
• Unsuitable pages are identified before significant annotation time is spent.

Work Terms

• Remote, hourly engagement.
• Accuracy is the primary quality measure, with handling time also tracked.

Compensation

• $12.68 per hour.