PDF Annotation & Transcription Experts – Telugu
Mercor • Remote, India, Japan, South Korea
Education
Not stated
Type
Hourly
Pay Rate
$10–$11/hr
Listed
31d ago
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From the Mercor listing
Fluent Language Skills Required: Telugu. Native fluency in Telugu, including full command of Telugu script and orthography, is required for this position. All annotation and transcription work is performed in Telugu.
Why This Role Exists
Document understanding breaks down fastest in the languages that parsing and vision-language models rarely see. This project builds training data for exactly those languages: Telugu, alongside four other Indic scripts, Japanese and Korean. Each task takes a real, publicly available PDF page and produces a complete structural map of that page, paired with a faithful transcription of every text region in the original script.
The dataset deliberately concentrates on the material models handle worst: handwriting, dense multi-column layouts, tables, diagrams, and mixed-script pages. Documents are drawn from newspapers, textbooks, examinations, and everyday formats such as flyers, forms, manuals, menus, brochures, notices and worksheets, so that the corpus reflects the real diversity of Telugu documents rather than a narrow band of easily parsed ones.
Delivered work is human-authored throughout. Component identification, component typing, reading order and all transcription are performed by people, not generated by parsing models.
What You'll Do
Open and check a task: pages are provided, so you do not source documents yourself. We find the PDFs and upload them for you. Before annotating, confirm the page is in Telugu, is legible, has real content, and shows no personal details
Annotate structure: identify and bound every meaningful region of the page - document title, section heading, paragraph, list, table, figure, diagram, caption, formula, question, answer field - and assign each a component type and a reading-order index
Record relationships: link each region to the figure or table it belongs to through a parent component identifier
Transcribe faithfully: reproduce all text exactly as it appears in Telugu script, including handwritten content, flagging any region where the source is not legible
Capture page metadata: language, document type, source, page dimensions, and flags for tables, formulas and handwriting
Review a colleague's work: every task is reviewed end to end by a second Telugu expert, and experienced annotators take on that review
Who You Are
You are a native Telugu speaker with full command of the script, its diacritics and its conjunct forms
You have worked with documents: annotation, transcription, translation, localization, subtitling, proofreading, journalism, or regional-language data review
You are exact: character-level accuracy matters more here than speed, and a single wrong diacritic is a defect
You are systematic: you apply a taxonomy consistently across hundreds of pages rather than improvising per document
You are comfortable with unfamiliar layouts: multi-column newspapers, exam papers, handwritten forms
Nice-to-Have Specialties
Regional-language AI data: annotation, labeling, grading, or bilingual evaluation for training datasets
Transcription and localization: MTPE, subtitling, bilingual QA, OCR correction or post-editing
Document production: typesetting, copy-editing, proofreading, or digitization of Telugu-language material
Script and encoding: Unicode normalization, Telugu input methods, numeral-form and character-form accuracy
What Success Looks Like
Every meaningful region on the page is captured, correctly bounded and correctly typed
Reading order reflects how the page is actually read, including across columns
Transcriptions match the source character for character, in Telugu script rather than transliteration
Your tasks pass second-expert review the first time
Unsuitable pages are flagged up front rather than after thirty minutes of work
Why Join Mercor
Build the training data that makes document AI work in scripts it currently handles badly
Work from real published Telugu documents rather than synthetic or templated pages
Quality leads on this project: accuracy is the first measure, with handling time tracked alongside it
How long hiring takes
Across the AI training platforms we refer candidates to, the median gap between referral and hire is about 30 days. It varies by platform and role, so treat it as a rough guide for this one.
Talent Pool members
Apply through this link and we can put you forward to Mercor when your profile is a strong match. Not every applicant is submitted. If you're not in the pool yet, set up your profile first.
Set up your profile →What to Expect
Looking at Mercor Generalist listings we've tracked, contracts in this domain typically run about 6.8 weeks. Actual length varies by project, but this gives you a realistic baseline going in.
Based on 10 extracted Mercor Generalist listings.
Eligible Languages
Fluent proficiency in one or more of: Japanese, Korean, or Telugu
Why this role
At $10–$11/hr, this PDF Annotation & Transcription Experts – Telugu position compensates Generalist expertise on its own terms, the kind of rate that would otherwise only show up inside a law firm, hospital, or research lab.
Skills and categories
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Common questions
Does it cost money to apply to Mercor?
No, applying and joining Mercor is free. Mercor's revenue comes from a fee it charges the client on top of your hourly rate, not from applicants. Treat any request for payment to join as a red flag.
Is Mercor for freelancers or full-time contractors?
Mercor places you with one client for a defined engagement, like 'Python Tutor for 3 months', rather than having you grab small tasks from a shared queue. Most roles function as steady contract work, not one-off gigs.
What does task-based AI training work look like?
Practical, hands-on data work: recording short videos, categorizing images, rating text responses, or analyzing data. Tasks are designed to be short and distinct, typically 5 to 60 minutes each.
What does asynchronous AI training work mean in practice?
No set hours, no check-ins, no meetings. You log in when you want, pick up an available task, complete it, and submit; nobody is waiting on you in real time. That's different from remote employment, where you're expected online during business hours. The tradeoff: you're competing with others for available tasks, so an empty queue means there's simply nothing to do until more work is released.
What does Generalist work look like for a PDF Annotation & Transcription Experts – Telugu?
Tasks here are scoped to Generalist, not generic labeling. As a PDF Annotation & Transcription Experts – Telugu, expect to draw on real domain judgment (evaluating outputs, correcting errors, or providing expert reasoning specific to Generalist) rather than following a one-size-fits-all rubric. If you don't have hands-on Generalist background, this is likely not the right listing to start with.
What specific skills does this listing call for?
Data Annotation, Bilingual, Japanese, and Korean are named directly in the listing. If you don't have hands-on experience with these, expect the screening process to test for them directly rather than accepting adjacent experience as a substitute.
How much does this specific role pay?
This listing is posted at $10–$11/hr, an hourly rate. The range reflects experience level and negotiated terms, not a placeholder, so where you land in it depends on your background and the assessment. Pay can change between when we last checked the listing and when you apply, so confirm the current number on the platform's own application page before committing time.
Do I need to be fluent in Japanese, Korean, or Telugu?
Yes. This role specifically requires Japanese, Korean, or Telugu proficiency, on top of the English most AI training work assumes by default. If Japanese is not a language you're fluent in, this is not the right role. Filter for your native language to find better-matched listings.
What happens when I click Apply on this listing?
You'll be taken to Mercor's external site to complete your application there. This listing links through a referral, but the process is identical to applying directly; the link just routes you correctly. Create an account on their site and follow their onboarding steps.
Can I apply from outside India, Japan, or South Korea?
This specific role is open only to people based in India, Japan, and South Korea. If you are somewhere else, applying is unlikely to lead to an offer even if you pass the assessment, because the restriction is usually about where the work can legally be contracted rather than your skills. Read the full description for any tax-residency or right-to-work caveats before you apply, since they can differ by country.
How soon will I start working after applying to Mercor?
Not immediately. Mercor is a talent marketplace, not a task queue, so applying puts you in a pool of candidates. You start working only once a specific client, like a major AI lab, selects your profile, and that matching process can take weeks.